A 19th century scientist worth knowing.
It’s never fun to issue a correction, except sometimes it is. Climate Shock boldly proclaims on p. 35:
Year by which the greenhouse effect had been discovered: 1824.
Year by which the greenhouse effect had been shown in a lab: 1859.
Year by which the greenhouse effect had been quantified: 1896.
Year by which today’s range for the all-important “climate sensitivity” metric had been established: 1979.
All are technically (still) true. It will also come as no surprise that the three 19th century dates are associated with three white men: Joseph Fourier, John Tyndall, and Svante Arrhenius, respectively.
Meanwhile, there is a key date missing: Eunice Foote first identified carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas in 1856, three years before John Tyndall’s first publication on the subject. Full citation:
Foote, E., 1856. “Circumstances affecting the Heat of the Sun’s Rays.” American Journal of Science and Arts 22(66): p.382.
[Amazingly, at the time of this writing, 17 May 2018, that article has exactly two citations on Google Scholar.]
It turns out Ms. Foote did not, in fact, show the greenhouse effect, as Andrew Dessler has helpfully pointed out. Still, at the very least, she has previewed high school science experiments performed to this date, and she did show the warming effects of carbon dioxide.
A correction well deserved: gwagner.com/foote