https://xkcd.com/2889/

Alt text:

Once he had the answer, Arrhenius complained to his friends that he’d “wasted over a full year” doing tedious calculations by hand about “so trifling a matter” as hypothetical CO2 concentrations in far-off eras (quoted in Crawford, 1997).

  • Rhaedas@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    10 months ago

    Their work resulted in the often-posted newspaper article speculating how in a few centuries the emissions of burning coal might become a problem for the world’s environment. What they didn’t anticipate was the rate of increase from a population explosion which would begin its climb in a few decades from various factors.