Charles David Keeling was an American scientist who first alerted the world to the possibility of an anthropogenic contribution to global warming. Before you reach for your Google, ‘anthropogenic’ means ‘having its origin in the influence of human activity on nature’. Nowadays that fact is a no-brainer. However, when he announced the Keeling Curve in 1961 things were different.
How the Keeling Curve Came About
Charles Keeling invented the first instrument to measure carbon dioxide in samples of the atmosphere In 1955. Then he camped on the California coastline where he used it to prove CO2 had risen since the 19th Century.
Roger Revelle convinced him to continue his work, and arranged funding from the International Geophysical Year which he founded. Charles Keeling used the money to establish a research base on Mauna Loa in Hawaii, at a point two miles above sea level. Since Mauna Loa is remote from any continent or city, this provides consistent samples of average Central Pacific air.
What Charles Keeling Discovered on Mauna Loa
Charles Keeling collected carbon dioxide samples from 1958 to 1960. In 1961, he produced the Keeling Curve chart showing carbon dioxide levels were increasing steadily. These reached peak levels at the end of winter, but reduced somewhat in spring and summer following fresh plant growth.
The National Science Foundation shrugged these findings off as ‘routine’ in the early 1960’s. It withdrew its support, although it did advance them in 1963 as proof of ‘rapidly increasing amounts of heat-trapping gases’. Nevertheless, the work continued to this day on Mauna Loa. It is the longest continuous record. And considered a reliable indicator of events in the troposphere correlating with fossil fuel emissions.
Charles David Keeling received vindication in 1981, when the American Meteorological Society awarded him its Second Half Century Award. Thus, he made finally his point his Keeling Curve was not ‘routine’. Although this did take him two decades of unrewarded effort.
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