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What history's hidden grandmother of climate science teaches us today
NPR ^ | March 31, 2023 | By Anil Oza , Regina G. Barber , Liz Metzger , Rebecca Ramirez

Posted on 03/31/2023 5:17:24 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer

Today, most climate science is done with satellites, sensors and complicated computer models. But it all started with two glass tubes.

"A woman, about 170 years ago, used a very simple experimental setup – two glass tubes, two thermometers, an air pump – and was able to demonstrate that if you add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, you warm it up. It's basic physics," says Annarita Mariotti, a climate scientist and program director of Modeling, Analysis, Predictions, and Projections at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.

Eunice Foote, the woman behind that glass tube experiment, has largely been left out of the history books. Until about 10 years ago, John Tyndall was seen as the grandfather of climate science for setting the foundation for the understanding of the greenhouse gas effect. But Foote's experiment, done three years prior, showed that air with more "carbonic acid," or carbon dioxide, both heated up faster and cooled down slower than regular air.

"She actually did some really important work before John Tyndall even got going. So why was there this grandmother of climate science that had essentially been written out of the history books?" asks Katharine Wilkinson, a climate scientist and the executive director of The All We Can Save Project. "Some of the frustration is that her story is still all too relevant today, that there are still far too many women doing really important work that either flies under the radar or gets shoved under the radar."

Foote's study was relatively straightforward. In a series of experiments, she took two glass containers full of air and would pump different gasses – including carbon dioxide and water vapor – into one of the containers. She would then leave those containers in the sun and monitor how quickly they heated up and cooled down in the shade.

Her work was presented in 1856, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. It was the first work done by a woman to be presented at the conference – though she did not give the presentation herself. Rather, it was done by physicist and first secretary of the Smithsonian, Joseph Henry.

But Foote didn't just pioneer the field of climate science. Mariotti says, "She opened doors for women in science and in general broader representation in sciences ... She did not have a Ph.D. and she did not have sophisticated experimental set up. And still she did it."

Foote was a pioneer in more ways than one. She was the first woman in the United States to publish papers on physics; she also advocated for women's rights outside of academia. Foote helped organize the Seneca Falls Convention, which launched the women's suffrage movement in the U.S. "There was something sort of intersectional, perhaps, in her thinking in her life," Wilkinson says. "If we are not bringing critical lenses to understand the root causes of the climate crisis, if we're not bringing critical lenses to understanding the need to embed equality and justice in the solutions to the climate crisis, we're not going to get to a good outcome ... There's early seeds of that in Eunice's story as well."


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: globalwarming; hoax; propaganda; socialism

1 posted on 03/31/2023 5:17:24 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
an air pump Any moron knows that if you compress air it produces heat.
2 posted on 03/31/2023 5:19:58 AM PDT by Feckless (The US Gubbmint / This Tagline CENSORED by FR \ IrOnic, ain't it?)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

National Panhandling Radio is to science as Occasional Cortex is to intelligence.


3 posted on 03/31/2023 5:20:23 AM PDT by Da Coyote
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

The perfect planetary model for the theory of CO2 atmospheric heating is Mars. The martian atmosphere is 93% CO2 and while thin it is thick enough to allow a helicopter to fly. By weight there is ten times to amount of CO2 on Mars as there is on earth, and although Mars is smaller there are no oceans so the land area is close to earth’s.

And yet there is no evidence of a greenhouse effect. In summer the equator on Mars gets to 25 degrees C, but during the night it cools right back down with no trapping of heat. You can’t ask for a better test on a large scale basis than that.


4 posted on 03/31/2023 5:35:32 AM PDT by JeanLM
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Except the universe is a tad bigger than a test tube. AND to say we’re causing climate change is absurd. Do you realize how minute we are in the universe. Just look at the stars tonight and marvel at their existence....millions of miles away.


5 posted on 03/31/2023 5:37:41 AM PDT by Sacajaweau ( )
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

It’s called specific heat and the property of various substances is well known. But what were her results when the amount of carbon dioxide (or carbonic acid when dissolved in water) was increased from 220 ppm to 350 ppm? I’m going to go way out on a limb here and say that the results were too small to measure, even when the experiment was conducted over many, many months.

My tagline.


6 posted on 03/31/2023 5:41:05 AM PDT by Blood of Tyrants (It's science and therefore cannot be questioned!)
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To: Da Coyote; Oldeconomybuyer
I checked the biographies of the authors. Three of them were available. I suspect the fourth was strictly a journalist, based on the types of stories the NPR website sent me to.

Of the remaining three, only one can be said to be an actual scientist, with a PhD in Physics (specialty escapes me). Per her bio, the PhD apparently has spent a lot of her career on woke politics, in the form of getting under represented groups into STEM careers.

That said, the whole thing is written with no intellectual rigor at all. If I were grading this as a science article, I would give it a C-. Whoever wrote this has no more than a parrot's understanding of science and in particular climate science. E.g. - Carbonic acid is NOT free carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It's the stuff that makes your pop, sparkling water, beer, and champagne bubbly.

7 posted on 03/31/2023 5:44:07 AM PDT by Hardastarboard (Don't wish your enemy ill; plan it. )
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To: Blood of Tyrants

“It’s science and therefore cannot be questioned!”

Only climate “science” can not be questioned and that’s why the global world order needs trillions of dollars and unquestioned power to keep “studying” it.


8 posted on 03/31/2023 6:01:32 AM PDT by Organic Panic (Democrats. Memories as short as Joe Biden's eyes)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
> A woman, about 170 years ago, used a very simple experimental setup – two glass tubes, two thermometers, an air pump – and was able to demonstrate that if you add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, you warm it up. <

Wow. That’s very convincing, even considering that compressed air usually gets warmer. It’s just a shame there’s no mechanism in nature to remove that excess carbon dioxide.
Oh, wait. There is.

Maybe that learned woman should have put plants in her fancy test tubes.

9 posted on 03/31/2023 6:06:17 AM PDT by Leaning Right (The steal is real.)
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To: Feckless

As a scientist, I can observe that her scientific methods lacked a little control. What moron would classify two test tubes and an addition of CO2 as a controlled experiment? No accounting of CO2 consumption by plants, etc., so all she proved was your observation that compression of air does, in fact, produce heat. GIVE HEr the NObile Peach prize!


10 posted on 03/31/2023 6:07:44 AM PDT by silent majority rising
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To: Blood of Tyrants

Going from 280ppm to 560ppm yields a 1.2C increase, modified by humidity. Most likely she was working with far higher levels in CO2. Also, not dealing with clouds, convection, and a number of other factors.


11 posted on 03/31/2023 6:08:50 AM PDT by lepton ("It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into"--Jonathan Swift)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Simpleton oversimplifying a complex environment in the laboratory with a preconceived outcome.

CO2 is the gas of life in this biosphere.

Without it, there’s insufficient oxygen...and deep cold.

Put that in your test tube and stuff it.


12 posted on 03/31/2023 6:17:32 AM PDT by logi_cal869 (-cynicus the "concern troll" a/o 10/03/2018 /!i!! &@$%&*(@ -)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
was able to demonstrate that if you add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, you warm it up.

So my idea of putting 200 pound blocks of Dry Ice in your homes to Heat your home will work!! If only the Gas Companies would now SHUT OFF All Sales and Deliveries within 300 miles of DC and begin selling blocks of Dry Ice so they can have effective heating in their homes will work just fine.
13 posted on 03/31/2023 6:40:30 AM PDT by eyeamok (founded in cynicism, wrapped in sarcasm)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

NOAA, University of East Anglia, and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, working with Michael Mann and a couple of others cooked up the climate scam, along with the computer model (lots of GIGO) which started all this. Along with a few cherry picked tree cores (12 out of thousands, and only those 12) “proved” the Hockey Stick was true, erasing the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age.
Liars all.


14 posted on 03/31/2023 6:42:17 AM PDT by TStro (Better to die on your feet than live on your knees)
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To: silent majority rising

Plus the oceans trap CO2 which creates sea shells and reefs. When the concentration of atmospheric CO2 increases the more CO2 the oceans absorb.


15 posted on 03/31/2023 6:48:38 AM PDT by TStro (Better to die on your feet than live on your knees)
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To: JeanLM

The perfect planetary model for the theory of CO2 atmospheric heating is Mars.
= = =

But Mars is a cisgender male.


16 posted on 03/31/2023 8:32:23 AM PDT by Scrambler Bob
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To: Feckless; All
Thank you for posting Feckless.

"'an air pump' Any moron knows that if you compress air it produces heat."


Evidently not every moron.

Speaking of greenhouse experiments, consider that solar eclipses are a natural, grand-scale experiment, experienced by probably millions of people, that show that greenhouse gasses like methane and CO2 actually fail to hold the heat down under the shadow of a midday solar eclipse of an otherwise warm sunny day.

Solar eclipse 2017: How much did the temperature change during the eclipse? (non-FR; 8.22.17)

Also, is it any surprise that nighttime temperatures typically keep dropping in various places until shortly after sunrise?

So-called "global warming" alarmism amounts to corrupt government leaders working with likewise corrupt CEOs to abuse government power by forcing citizens to buy, through unconstitutional, unaccountable federal taxing and spending, junk science products as remedies for government-industrial-manufactured crises imo.

17 posted on 03/31/2023 9:02:20 AM PDT by Amendment10
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To: Organic Panic

According to “science” “climate change” killed me decades ago....

I recommend witch doctors at this point—at least they believe their own crazy stuff.


18 posted on 03/31/2023 9:07:15 AM PDT by cgbg (Claiming that laws and regs that limit “hate speech” stop freedom of speech is “hate speech”.)
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