Svante Arrhenius Predicts Global Warming

In 1896, Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius published a paper calculating that doubling atmospheric carbon dioxide would raise global temperatures by 5-6 degrees Celsius — remarkably close to modern estimates. Working with pencil and paper, he spent a year computing the effect of CO2 on Earth's heat balance. Arrhenius saw this as a distant future possibility and even thought warming might benefit humanity. His work was largely ignored for decades, but it laid the scientific foundation for our understanding of the greenhouse effect and anthropogenic climate change. He became the first person to quantify the link between fossil fuel combustion and planetary warming.