Charles David Keeling

This set things in motion.

In 1958, measurements of CO2 were started by Charles Keeling from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the Mauna Loa Observatory on Hawaii.

After a couple of years, he and his colleagues could observe a rise in carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere.

The data was discussed at the first international conference about the influence of carbon dioxide on the climate in March 1963.

Among the seven participants there were only three real climate scientists.

Charles Keeling from Scripps, Bert Bolin's colleague Erik Eriksson from Stockholm University and the pioneer Gilbert Plass, now at the Ford Motor Company.

The conclusion from the conference was that a temperature rise of 3.8 degrees Fahrenheit could be enough to bring about immense flooding of the lower proportions of the world's land surface, resulting from increased melting of glaciers.

and recommended a watchdog on CO2.

Scientists knew about rising CO2 levels in our atmosphere for many, many decades, but nothing was ever done because it wasn't considered a problem.

And then during the time of IGY, this scientist named Charles Keeling comes along.

And by all accounts, Charles Keeling was a guy who loved to measure things.

So I came to think of him as the count from Sesame Street.

We just can't help counting things.

Revelle realizes humanity is conducting what he calls a large-scale geophysical experiment, one we apparently enrolled the entire planet in without obtaining consent.

Then Charles David Keeling comes along and does something climate science desperately needed.

He measures atmospheric carbon dioxide continuously and with extraordinary precision.

Starting in 1958, including at Mauna Loa in Hawaii, his observations produce the Keeling Curve.

It rises.

It also wiggles up and down each year as Northern Hemisphere plants inhale carbon during the growing season and release it later.

Atmospheric CO2 was around 320 parts per million when Johnson received that report.

By 2005, it was roughly 380.