No surprise to you that I'm interested in the history of science and of knowledge, but perhaps a little surprising that I'm not the only one. Eli Rabett has recently taken up the history of our knowledge on atmospheric infrared radiation.
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2011/01/required-reading.html Ångström observing infrared radiation from the atmosphere
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2011/01/angstrom-effect.html Arguing for 'Ångström effect' as the name rather than greenhouse effect
but then joining many of the rest of us in 'Callendar effect' in http://rabett.blogspot.com/2011/01/well-damn-it-all-its-callendar-effect.html
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2011/01/fourier-and-greenhouse.html More about Fourier and the term 'greenhouse effect'
I'll also take this chance to recommend The Callendar Effect as being a readable introduction both to the biography of the engineer/scientist who did the work, and to the science that he did on carbon dioxide as an important driver of climate change. I also have the complete papers, one of which and its response have some interesting, to me at least, illumination regarding the difference between being skeptical and being in denial.
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