John Tyndall, Svante Arrhenius, and Early Research on Carbon Dioxide and Climate

In the second half of the nineteenth century two prominent scientists, working in two distinct specialties, identified the importance of atmospheric trace constituents as efficient absorbers of long-wave radiation and as factors in climatic control. John Tyndall conducted the first convincing experiments on the radiative properties of gases, demonstrating that “perfectly colorless and invisible gases and vapours” were able to absorb and emit radiant heat. Svante Arrhenius, in pursuing his interests in meteorology and cosmic physics, demonstrated that variations of atmospheric CO2 concentration could have a very great effect on the overall heat budget and surface temperature of the planet. It would be a mistake, however, to consider either of these individuals as direct forerunners or prophets of contemporary climate concerns. Each of them had extremely broad scientific interests and pursued climate-related research as one interest among many. Tyndall worked on absorption in the near infrared at temperatures far above those of the terrestrial environment. Arrhenius, who has recently gained renewed attention as the “father” of the theory of the greenhouse effect, held assumptions and produced results that are not continuous with present-day climate research. . . . The solar heat possesses, in a far higher degree than that of lime light, the power of crossing an atmosphere; but, when the heat is absorbed by the planet, it is so changed in quality that the rays emanating from the planet cannot get with the same freedom back into space. Thus the atmosphere admits of the entrance of the solar heat, but checks its exit; and the result is a tendency to accumulate heat at the surface of the planet. —John Tyndall (1859). . . John Tyndall was born in Leighlin Bridge, County Carlow, Ireland, on August 2, 1820, the son of a part-time shoemaker and constable. He attended the national school in Carlow and, at the age of eighteen, joined the Irish Ordnance Survey as a draftsman and surveyor. In 1842, as the Irish survey neared completion, Tyndall was transferred to the English Survey at Preston, Lancashire, but due to his protests against the survey’s oppressive policies and incompetent management, he was dismissed.