STANDARDS

NGSS: ESS3.D

CCSS: Writing: 1

TEKS: 6.3D, 7.3D, 8.3D, 8.5D, C.3F, C.13D, C.14B

Historic Climate Discovery

Eunice Foote pinpointed a major cause of climate changemore than 160 years ago

AS YOU READ, THINK ABOUT how greenhouse gases trap heat in the atmosphere.

Black & white photo of a woman in old-fashioned clothing with her dog

PICTORIAL PRESS LTD/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

“THE HIGHEST EFFECT OF THE SUN’S RAYS I HAVE FOUND TO BE IN CARBONIC ACID [CARBON DIOXIDE] GAS.” —EUNICE FOOTE

The year is 1856. Eunice Foote, a physicist from Seneca Falls, New York, is about to conduct an experiment. She wants to measure the warming effect of sunlight on gases in Earth’s atmosphere.

Foote places glass cylinders filled with different gases in the sun and measures the temperature of each over time. She finds that certain gases absorb more heat than others and that carbon dioxide (CO2) gas traps the most heatby far. From this, Foote comes to a groundbreaking conclusion. She proposes that a greater amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would cause temperatures on Earth to rise.

Illustration of 1 degree melting

Since Foote’s experiment, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen by 129 parts per million and the average global temperature has increased by 1 degree C (1. 8 degrees F).

Today, scientists know that carbon dioxide is a powerful contributor to the greenhouse effect. Human activities like burning fossil fuelscoal, oil, and natural gashave increased the amount of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Because of this, the average temperature of Earth’s atmosphere is steadily increasingjust as Foote had predicted. This is causing ice caps to melt, sea levels to rise, and extreme weather to intensify.

Foote was the first scientist to connect carbon dioxide levels to climate change. Unfortunately, she didn’t get credit for her discovery until 2011, when a retired scientist stumbled across her research. Let’s take a closer look at Foote’s simple yet ingenious experiment.

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