Wondering Willis Eschenbach at WUWT (archived here) has just discovered Guy Stewart Callendar, 76 years after everyone else did. He sings his praises, though he is selective about the bits he quotes.
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| "GS Callendar 1934" University of East Anglia Archive (provided by James R. Fleming). Source: Spencer Weart |
In around 2064, another random denier will claim discovery of Dr James Hansen's 1988 testimony to the US Congressional Committee and say what a brilliant scientist Jim Hansen was.
Callendar didn't anticipate the rate at which we'd burn fossil fuel, with his Table VI showing CO2 at 360 ppm in the 22nd Century instead of 1995. He figured at 360 ppm, CO2 would result in a rise in global surface temperature of 0.57 degrees Celsius, which is pretty close to the actual increase by the mid-1990s, but doesn't allow for the climate to come to equilibrium. So it's probably an underestimate. Someone more familiar with Callendar's work might comment on this.
Ed Hawkins and Phil Jones wrote a paper last year, to celebrate 75 years since Callendar's seminal paper. They also put together a poster. I see from their paper that if deniers want to get access to a "large collection" of Callendar's notebooks, they'll have to go cap in hand to the University of East Anglia, and maybe beg forgiveness from Dr Phil Jones.
