Who was the first Scientist to discover global warming and record it?

Answer 1

As others have said - Svante Arrhenius back in 1896.

Arrhenius was a Swedish chemist and Nobel Prize winner. He is regarded as the first person to have produced credible and reliable documentary evidence, this was published in his paper "On the influence of carbonic acid in the air upon the temperature of the ground" (carbonic acid being the chemical name of the time for carbon doixde).

At the same time an American P C Chamberlain was working on similar studies though not as extensively as Arrhenius.

The first scientific connection to global warming dates from 1811 when it was speculated that atmospheric pollution led to increased temps. There's no record I'm aware of that attributes this to a particulat scientist.

In 1827 the French scientist Jean-Baptiste Fourier put forward the notion that Earth's atmosphere was retaining heat and described it as a 'greenhouse effect'

Answer 2

Svante Arrhenius is usually credited with the idea that human emissions of greenhouse gases could warm the climate. In 1896 Arrhenius roughly calculated the effect a doubling or halving of CO2 would have on the climate. However, Arrhenius was mostly interested in explaining past ice ages, and it was until the mid-twentieth century that his theory was applied to the current warming trend.

The history of global warming theory is really quite fascinating. If you'd like to read more about it, check out the site linked below. It's a comprehensive history of the theory from its origins in the nineteenth century to today written by a physicist and science historian.

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm

Answer 3

Svante Arrhenius, a swedish chemists in 1896 is the first that I have read about.

http://www.maui.net/~jstark/nasa.html

There were many scientists that have been montioring CO2 for at least 180 years now.

http://www.anenglishmanscastle.com/180_years_accurate_Co2_Chemical_Methods.pdf

As far as recording it, that is a matter of speculation, since all observable climatic changes in the past can be explained by solar variability.

Answer 4

Great question!

Global Warming is caused by something called the "greenhouse effect". It's something astronomers came up with based on the conditions they observed on other planets. "Global Warming" is just a matter of plugging in the earth's numbers.

One source says "The greenhouse theory was first propounded by Rupert Wildt in the 1940s to explain the unexpectedly high temperatures of Venus. By the early 1960s, it was revived and championed by an American astronomer who is a household name in this country—Carl Sagan. " It's also known that Percival Lowell speculated about it in 1894. Venus was known to be almost an exact twin to the earth in size and composition. It was a puzzle to early scientists why it was so hot until Wildt made the simple observation that while the amounts are the same, the Earth's CO2 exists mainly as a solids in the crust (coal, limestone), Venus's CO2 takes the form of gas in the atmosphere. This small difference was found to explain the huge difference in surface temperature precisely. Later research showed that the Earth had a similar atmosphere originally, and that after life developed, green plants removed the gaseous CO2 and stored it as solid matter in the crust over billions of years time. The surface temperature was found to have decreased to its current level over that same time period. Global Warming merely supposes that the reverse should also be true. Converting the solid coal and limestone back to gas will increase the temperature, due to the greenhouse effect.

Answer 5

AL GORE and he is not a scientist, he's just another stupid democrat in need of a cause.

Answer 6

Al Gore was.....what, i bet you thought he was just another man stirring up hysteria to make a paycheck? noooooo, he got his BS in BS out of a cracker-jack box

Answer 7

Excellent question!!

But my money goes to Al Gore (politician, romantic novel character, global warming expert)........ ROTF LMFAO

Answer 8

hahaha AL GORE....or at least he's the one that made us look like idiots for not knowing...

Answer 9

i THINK it was carl sagan or maybe not