https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/11/28/climate-change-from-a-to-z
"Svante Arrhenius was, by nature, an optimist. He believed that science
should—and could—be accessible to all. In 1891, he got his first teaching job,
at an experimental university in Stockholm called the Högskola. That same year,
he founded the Stockholm Physics Society, which met every other Saturday
evening. For a fee of one Swedish crown, anyone could join. Among the society’s
earliest members was a Högskola student named Sofia Rudbeck, who was described
by a contemporary as both “an excellent chemist” and “a ravishing beauty.”
Arrhenius began writing her poetry, and soon the two wed.
Physics Society meetings consisted of lectures on the latest scientific
developments, many delivered by Arrhenius himself, followed by discussions that
often lasted well into the night. The topics ranged widely, from aeronautics to
volcanology. The society devoted several sessions to considering the
instruments that would be needed by Salomon August Andrée, another early member
of the group, who had decided to try to reach the North Pole via balloon.
(Whatever the quality of his instruments, Andrée’s voyage would result in his
death and the death of his two companions.)
A question that particularly interested the Physics Society was the origin of
the ice ages. All over Sweden lay signs of the glaciers that had, for vast
stretches of time, buried the country: rocks with parallel scrapings; strange,
sinuous piles of gravel; huge boulders that had been transported far from their
source. But what had caused the great ice sheets to descend, carrying all
before them? And then what had caused them to retreat, allowing the rivers to
flow once again and the forests to return? In 1893, the society debated various
theories that had been proposed, including one linking the ice ages to slight
variations in the Earth’s orbit. The following year, Arrhenius came up with a
different—and, he thought, better—idea: carbon dioxide.
Carbon dioxide, he knew, had curious heat-trapping properties. In the
atmosphere, it allowed visible light to pass through, but it absorbed the
longer-wave radiation that the Earth was constantly emitting to space. What if,
Arrhenius speculated, the amount of CO2 in the air had varied? Could that
explain the glaciers’ ebb and flow?"
Via
Future Crunch issue 192:
https://futurecrunch.com/
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
