Guy Stewart Callendar

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Guy Stewart Callendar (born February 1898 in Montreal , Canada ; † October 1964 ) was an English engineer and inventor. Callendar was able to demonstrate global warming for the first time on the basis of temperature measurements in 1938 , which he associated with the man-made greenhouse effect .

origin

Callendar was the son of Hugh Longbourne Callendar , an English physics professor who taught thermodynamics . GS Callendar worked as a power plant engineer and specialized in superheated steam. He worked out the first estimates of global temperature profiles and the relationship, known today as climate sensitivity, of the increase in global average temperature in relation to the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. His then little recognized hypothesis became known as the Callendar effect and is a milestone in the history of science on global warming .

Callendar built on the work of several 19th century scientists, including Svante Arrhenius and Nils Gustaf Ekholm . Between 1938 and 1964, he published ten larger and 25 shorter scientific articles on the subject of global warming , infrared radiation and the carbon dioxide introduced by humans. Others, like the Canadian physicist Gilbert Plass , expanded these studies in the 1950s and 1960s on the basis of Callender's work.

Callendar effect

In his work, The artificial production of carbon dioxide and its influence on temperature, published in 1938, he published the following theses: Based on the assumption that mankind has emitted 150,000 million tons of carbon dioxide over the past 50 years, he calculated an annual global warming rate of 0.003 ° C. He assumed an atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration of 274 ppm over the North Atlantic at the beginning of the 20th century. Callender believed this warming would be beneficial and delay "the return of the deadly glaciers". Callendar estimated the anthropogenic production rate of carbon dioxide at 4,500 million tons per year; In 2010, more than six times this amount, namely 30,300 million tons of the greenhouse gas was released into the atmosphere by humans.

The climate sensitivity of 2 ° C calculated by him is in the lower range of the climate sensitivity interval estimated by the IPCC.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.nzz.ch/wissenschaft/klimawandel-die-wichtsten-ffekten-im-ueberblick-ld.1420749
  2. ↑ a b The Climate Crisis: An Introductory Guide to Climate Change; David Archer , Stefan Rahmstorf Cambridge University Press, 2010 - page 8
  3. ↑ Onlinelibrary.wiley.com Guy Stewart Callendar: The artificial production of carbon dioxide and its influence on temperature
  4. ↑ a b Bowen, Mark (2006) Thin Ice , p. 96. New York, Henry Holt. ISBN 978-0-8050-6443-8
  5. ↑ International Energy Statistics Total Carbon Dioxide Emissions

literature

  • Fleming, JR (2007) The Callendar Effect: the life and work of Guy Stewart Callendar (1898-1964) Amer Meteor Soc., Boston. ISBN 978-1-878220-76-9
  • Fleming, JR (1998) Historical Perspectives on Climate Change Oxford University Press, New York. ISBN 0-19-507870-5

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Callendar, Guy Stewart
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English steam engineer and inventor
DATE OF BIRTH February 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Montreal , Canada
DATE OF DEATH October 1964