1856-- Mrs. Eunice Foote and Climate Change

 

We Were Warned A Long Time Ago    

      In 1856, an American woman, Mrs. Eunice Foote,  performed a series of experiments demonstrating that adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere would significantly raise the temperature of the climate. Moreover, she showed it would be very slow to cool back to normal--much slower than unpolluted air. The results were published in a scientific journal in November 1856.

         Of course she could not be admitted to the professional scientific organizations. No women were allowed. On the other hand, she was married to a respected judge and inventor. And her paper was only 557 words long, about the length of a short news story or slightly longer than usual letter to the editor.

       

Circumstances Affecting the Heat of the Sun’s Rays:

By Eunice Foote

From the American Journal of Science and Arts  Nov 1856

Pages 382, 383

From a paper read before the American Association August 23^rd 1856

            My investigations have had for their object to determine the different circumstances that affect the thermal action of the rays of light that proceed from the sun.

            Several results have been obtained.

            First. The action increases with the density of the air, and is diminished when more rarified.

            The experiments were made with an air-pump and two cylindrical receivers of the same size, about four inches in diameter and thirty in length. In each were placed two thermometers, and the air was exhausted from one and condensed in the other. After both had acquired the same temperature they were placed in the sun, side by side, and while the action of the sun’s rays rose to 110 degrees in the condensed tube, it attained only 88 degrees in the other. I had no means at hand of measuring the degree of condensation or rarefication.

            The observations taken once in two or three minutes, were as follows:

            This circumstance must affect the power of the sun’s rays in different places, and contribute to produce their feeble action on the summits of lofty mountains.

            Secondly. The action of the sun’s rays was found to be greater in moist than dry air.

            In one of the receivers the air was saturated with moisture—in the other it was dried by use of chorid (sic) of calcium.

            Both were placed in the sun as before and the result was as follows:

            The high temperature of moist air has frequently been observed. Who has not experienced the burning heat of the sun that precedes a summer’s shower? The isothermal lines will, I think, be found to be much affected by the different degrees of moisture in different places.

            Thirdly. The highest effect of the sun’s rays I have found to be in carbonic acid gas.

            One of the receivers was filled with it, the other with common air, and the result was as follows:

     

The receiver containing the gas became itself much heated—very sensibly more so than the other—and on being removed it was many times as long in cooling.

            An atmosphere of that gas would give to our earth a high temperature; and if as some suppose, at one period of its history the air had mixed with it a larger proportion than at present, an increased temperature from its own action as well as from the increased weight must have necessarily resulted.

            On comparing the sun’s heat in different gases, I found it to be in hydrogen gas 104 degrees; in common air, 106 degrees; in oxygen gas 108 degrees; and in carbonic acid gas, 125 degrees.

     You can't say we were not warned early about climate change! 

    Not surprisingly, an Englishman named John Tyndall "discovered" the same thing Foote did three years later. He was unaware of Foote's paper.  For decades he was given credit for what has become the basis of climate science.

 (Editor's note: the temperatures given are in Fahrenheit)