Some Great Climate Experts Ahead of their Time

Thanks to the efforts of geologist Louis Agassiz , mathematician Milutin Milankovitch and chemist Svante Arrhenius, scientists have determined that variations in the Earth’s orbit and shifting plate tectonics spur the waxing and waning of these periods. Also Svante Arrhenius, was the first to attempt a detailed calculation of the effect of changing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere

Louis Agassiz

Born: 28 May 1807, Haut-Vully, Switzerland

Died: 14 December 1873, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States

Known for: Ice age, Polygenism

Awards: Wollaston Medal, Copley Medal

In 1836 Agassiz began a new line of studies: the movements and effects of the glaciers of Switzerland. Several writers had expressed the opinion that these rivers of ice once had been much more extensive and that the erratic boulders scattered over the region and up to the summit of the Jura Mountains were carried by moving glaciers. On the ice of the Aar Glacier he built a hut, the “Hôtel des Neuchâtelois,” from which he and his associates traced the structure and movements of the ice. In 1840 he published his Études sur les glaciers, in some respects his most important work. In it Agassiz showed that at a geologically recent period Switzerland had been covered by one vast ice sheet.

Milutin Milankovic

Born: 28th May 1879 in Dalj, Austro-Hungary (modern day Croatia)

Died: 12th December 1958 in Belgrade, FPR Yugoslavia

Nationality: Serb

Fields: Mathematics, Astronomy and Geophysics

Known for: Insolation and Milankovitch cycles

In the eyes of Milutin Milankovitch, there’s been a noticeable trend in climate, temperature and seasons due to this cycle. And we can accredit these long-term climate changes to 3 variations in geometry between the Earth and sun:

• ECCENTRICITY: How the Earth orbits the sun.

• OBLIQUITY: What angle Earth faces the sun.

• PRECESSION: How Earth’s axis of rotation changes.

Svante Arrhenius

Born: 19 February 1859, Wik Castle, Sweden Died: 2 October 1927, Stockholm, Sweden Nationality: Sweden Field: Physics & Chemistry Known For: Arrhenius Equation, Calculation of warming for double carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, Theory of ionic dissociation, Acid-Base Theory

Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius in 1896 concluded that industrial-age coal burning will enhance the natural greenhouse effect. He suggests this might be beneficial for future generations. His conclusions on the likely size of the “man-made greenhouse” are in the same ballpark - a few degrees Celsius for a doubling of CO2 - as modern-day climate models.