How Did Humans Discover Climate Change? | Flashback with Palki Sharma

[Music] the year was 1938 a British engineer's holiday was about to change the world his name was Guy calender that year he decided to take a break but instead of relaxing calender had other ideas he pursued his true two great loves bikes and metor ology calendar started collecting records from various weather stations around 147 in total and remember this was before the computer so all the calculations were done by hand and what did he find that global temperatures had been rising by around 0.3 de C in 50 years it was a landmark Discovery the only question left was why kalender blamed it on carbon dioxide he said emissions from the industry were responsible in hindsight even emissions from his own beloved bikes none of it mattered though because in 1938 no one took him seriously for starters he was an engineer not a scientist so people said it's not his field of expertise also the idea itself was too big to accept that human beings could alter the temperature of something so big our planet so Calendar's work was dismissed interestingly he did not think that global warming was bad he thought it was good so how did we go from denying global warming to accepting it how did we link it to greenhouse gases also how did the whole Greenhouse analogy came about time for a [Music] flashback where do you think the climate change timeline Begins the 19th century maybe the 20th century well both answers are wrong even the ancient Greeks had an inkling about it like this man theopus he was a disciple of Aristotle now he did not have computers or fancy machines so he simply observed and what did he see in the Tess region temperatures cooled when the marshes were drained in Philippi when the forests were cut it became warm so theopus joined the dots h human actions led to climate change he couldn't quantify or prove it but he knew what was happening such localized climate change theories have been around for a long long time some of them turned out to be fake like rain follows the plow it was all the rage in the 19th century people thought human settlement would lead to more rainfall for example assume there's a piece of arid land it's all dry with no rain suddenly people decide to settle there they begin plowing the land to cultivate crops in the 19th century people thought this would lead to rainfall just stay in some place plow the land grow some crops and Rain would follow of course it doesn't work like that such ideas were limited to certain regions it was all localized none of them thought global climate change was possible that too by Human Action but without knowing that we were setting the stage for it I'm talking about the Industrial Age we built the steam engine we buil built dozens of factories all of it was done by burning coal this became Ground Zero for climate change for global warming and when did we realize this well it took a lot of time in the 1820s we took one major step forward we understood the Greenhouse Effect and it was proposed by this man Joseph Fier a French physicist and his logic was quite simple sunlight brings heat to the Earth if the Earth reflected all of it back it would be a cold Wasteland but the Earth is not a cold Wasteland meaning some of the heat is stored within it is trapped now furi said the atmosphere is doing all of this it is trapping some of the heat from the sun which is exactly what a greenhouse does other scientists built on this Theory one of them was Eunice Newton foot she was an amateur scientist in the United States in the 1850s she conducted crucial experiments again the concept was simple she put mercury thermometers inside different glass cylinders and what did she observe the cylinders with carbon dioxide were hotter so foot joined the dots there was something about this gas this carbon dioxide it had the ability to make the air hotter in 1856 her work was presented at the aaas the American Association for advancement of science but guess who presented it not foot but her male colle colleague welcome to the 19th century foot's work was largely ignored during her lifetime it was only recently that she's been acknowledged 3 years after foot's paper another one was published This Time by John Tindle an Irish physicist now if you're in school right now you may recognize this name John Tindle especially from the Tindle effect but don't worry we will not go into that we are focusing on his climate change experiments Tindle refined what Unis foot found he proved the greenhouse effect that gases like carbon dioxide could absorb heat that's what he proved his paper credits another scientist named ma pu but it doesn't mention foot maybe he did not know about her work or maybe he thought it was not relevant either way by the late 1800 scientists knew a couple of things the greenhouse effect was real and gases like carbon dioxide could trap more heat just one problem though no one looked at the larger picture no one applied these findings to our planet's temperature it finally happened in the year 1895 thanks to a Swedish chemist Swant arenus he wasn't actually studying global warming he was studying the opposite he was looking at global cooling arenius was trying to explain the I ages what would have caused it he zeroed it on carbon dioxide first he gathered data on global temperatures then he began calculations and guess how many between 10,000 and 100,000 that's how many calculations it took arenus one year later in 1896 he published his paper and the takeaway was simple if CO2 levels were halved temperatures would fall by 4 to 5° C so lesser the CO2 lesser the temperature it was job done for arenus but soon he started wondering what if the opposite happened what if CO2 levels doubled instead of hoing then temperatures would rise by 5 to 6° not many people bought it especially after hearing his next claim arenus linked CO2 levels to the burning of coal he said CO2 levels would increase by 50% in 3,000 years I guess he was wrong not about coal but about the speed because in the 20th century alone CO2 levels increased by 30% anyway Arenas went on to win the Nobel Prize not for climb change though that part of his work was always polarizing his theory was finally proven 1938 it was too late by then arenus died 9 years before guy Calendar's experiment so let's recap Again by the 1940s scientists knew three things greenhouse effect was real carbon dioxide was among the main culprits and coal burning would lead to global warming again just one problem no one thought it was an issue not guy calendar not swan arenus and not John Tindle they all thought it was great for the world the cold uninhabitable places would get warm no fears of another Ice Age also more agriculture in higher latitudes what's not to like it would take decades to change that attitude in fact forget global warming in the 1970s some scientists were worried about global cooling in 1974 the Time Magazine carried this article another Ice Age question mark it was mostly because of aerosol pollutants these could block and reflect the sunlight and after World War II these pollutants were everywhere so global temperatures did fall from 1940 to 1970 but this was temporary by the late 1970s the cooling stopped the Earth was now on a highway to warming and when did we realize that this was a bad thing many scientists point to the year 1988 that summer was the hottest on record we we had wildfires droughts and all kinds of climate events so politicians took notice the same year a NASA scientist gave an alarming warning his name was James Hansen he said he was 99% sure that global warming was upon us that's when things went into overdrive in 1989 the ipcc was formed the intergovernmental panel on climate change its job was to study the evidence to see how bad things were and by now computers were more common so temperature calculations were easier scientists predicted multiple climate disasters like droughts wildfires and Powerful hurricanes they also began talking about sea levels as Polar Ice Mells more water would be added to the Sea more water equals rising sea levels studies claimed the Seas could Rise by up to 98 CM by the year 2100 it was a proper SOS governments realized they had to act like nuclear weapons and Global Peace climate change became an international issue so in 1995 the first cop was held the conference of parties the annual climate Summit two years later came the Kyoto Protocol it was the first Global agreement to cut emissions 41 countries signed the Kyoto Protocol the target was to cut emissions below the 1990 level a second agreement was signed in 2015 the Paris climate deal this time 197 countries signed off they agreed to voluntarily cut emissions but unfortunately both deals have proved inadequate today climate change is a proven science but tell that to our politicians many of them still ignore it some of them downright deny it but you see climate change denial is not like saying that the Earth is flat or that the moon landing did not happen it's not just another conspiracy theory it's an existential threat to humans the ancient Greeks had inklings about it 19th century scientists made assumptions about it it and 20th Century experts proved it the question is can 21st century politicians do their [Music] part I

Channel: Firstpost

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Keywords: firstpost, climate change, climate change pioneers, global warming, climate change summit, cop28, cop28 summit, climate change 2023, climate change issues, climate change worsening, problem of climate change, global warming increasing, increasing global warming, climate change pioneer, climate pioneers, climate experts, climate change experts, palki sharma, first post, climate change specialist, climate change discovery, global warming experts, greenhouse gas

Id: tDc_YtKCaTI

Length: 11min 41sec (701 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 09 2023