Guy Stewart Callendar

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Guy Stewart Callendar
Guy Stewart Callendar in 1934
Born9 February 1898
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Died3 October 1964 (1964-10-04) (aged 66)
Horsham, West Sussex, England
NationalityEnglish
Known forCallendar effect

Guy Stewart Callendar (/ˈkæləndər/; 9 February 1898 – 3 October 1964) was an English steam engineer and inventor.[1] His main contribution to human knowledge was developing the theory that linked rising carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere to global temperature. In 1938, he was the first to show that the land temperature of Earth had risen over the previous 50 years.[2] This theory, earlier proposed by Svante Arrhenius,[3] has been called the Callendar effect. Callendar thought this warming would be beneficial, delaying a "return of the deadly glaciers."[4]

Early life, family and education

Callendar was born in

City and Guilds College
(part of Imperial), graduating with a certificate in those subjects three years later. This allowed him to commence full-time employment with his father, working on the properties of steam at high temperatures and pressures.

Career

Callendar's professional work on steam and pressure was conducted under the patronage of the British Electrical and Allied Industries Research Association, which represented

Charles Keeling, expanded upon Callendar's work in the 1950s and 1960s.[7]

Research

In 1938, Callendar compiled measurements of temperatures from the 19th century on, and correlated these measurements with old measurements of atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

British Meteorological Society thought his results must be taken as a coincidence.[11] However, his ideas did influence the scientific discourse of the time, which had been generally sceptical about the influence of changes in CO2 levels on global temperatures in the previous decades after debate over the idea in the early 20th century.[7] His papers throughout the 1940s and 50s slowly convinced some other scientists of the need to conduct an organised research programme on CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere, leading eventually to Charles Keeling's Mauna Loa Observatory measurements from 1958, which proved pivotal to advancing the theory of anthropogenic global warming.[7] He remained convinced of the accuracy of his theory until his death in 1964 despite continued mainstream scepticism.[11]

See also

References

  1. ^ Charles C. Mann (2018) Meet the Amateur Scientist Who Discovered Climate Change Wired.
  2. ^ a b c Hawkins, Ed & Phil Jones (2013) "On increasing global temperatures: 75 years after Callendar", Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, doi:10.1002/qj.2178
  3. ^ a b American Institute of Physics, The Discovery of Global Warming: The Carbon Dioxide Greenhouse Effect Archived 11 November 2016 at the Wayback Machine, February 2014 (accessed 13 November 2014)
  4. ISBN 978-0-8050-6443-8
  5. Who's Who & Who Was Who. Vol. 2022 (online ed.). A & C Black. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  6. ^ Fleming, James Rodger, "Callendar, Guy Stewart". Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 29 March 2022.
  7. ^
    ISBN 978-0195078701
    .
  8. ^ Callendar, G. S. (1938) "The artificial production of carbon dioxide and its influence on temperature", Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, doi:10.1002/qj.49706427503
  9. ISBN 978-1-878220-76-9
  10. ^ Archer, David; Rahmstorf, Stefan (2010). The Climate Crisis: An Introductory Guide to Climate Change. Cambridge University Press. p. 8.
  11. ^
    ISBN 978-0-521-72732-7
    . Retrieved 28 January 2016.

Further reading

External links
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