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  • Published: 12 September 2016

A Hiatus of the Greenhouse Effect

  • Jinjie Song 1 ,
  • Yuan Wang 1 &
  • Jianping Tang 1  

Scientific Reports volume  6 , Article number:  33315 ( 2016 ) Cite this article

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The rate at which the global average surface temperature is increasing has slowed down since the end of the last century. This study investigates whether this warming hiatus results from a change in the well-known greenhouse effect. Using long-term, reliable, and consistent observational data from the Earth’s surface and the top of the atmosphere (TOA), two monthly gridded atmospheric and surface greenhouse effect parameters ( G a and G s ) are estimated to represent the radiative warming effects of the atmosphere and the surface in the infrared range from 1979 to 2014. The atmospheric and surface greenhouse effect over the tropical monsoon-prone regions is found to contribute substantially to the global total. Furthermore, the downward tendency of cloud activity leads to a greenhouse effect hiatus after the early 1990 s, prior to the warming pause. Additionally, this pause in the greenhouse effect is mostly caused by the high number of La Niña events between 1991 and 2014. A strong La Niña indicates suppressed convection in the tropical central Pacific that reduces atmospheric water vapor content and cloud volume. This significantly weakened regional greenhouse effect offsets the enhanced warming influence in other places and decelerates the rising global greenhouse effect. This work suggests that the greenhouse effect hiatus can be served as an additional factor to cause the recent global warming slowdown.

Introduction

The rate at which the global average surface air temperature ( T s ) increases has slowed down during the past few decades 1 . This so-called hiatus, pause, or slowdown of global warming has inspired investigations into its potential causes worldwide 1 , 2 . Although some researchers doubted the existence of a global warming hiatus because of coverage bias 3 , 4 , artificial inconsistency 5 , and a change point analysis of instrumental T s records 6 , it is now accepted that a recent warming deceleration can be clearly observed 1 . There are two primary hypotheses to explain the recent slowdown of the upward trend in T s 7 . Both hypotheses attempt to explain the contradiction between the trendless T s variation and the intensifying anthropogenic greenhouse effect resulting from the steadily increasing emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs). The first attributes the warming hiatus to external radiative forcings, such as decreasing solar irradiance 8 , increasing tropospheric and stratospheric aerosols 9 , reduced stratospheric water vapor 10 , and several small volcanic eruptions 11 . The warming effect of increasing GHGs is largely cancelled out by the decreasing solar shortwave radiation received by the Earth’s surface. The second considers the warming pause to be a result of internal oceanic and/or atmospheric decadal variabilities against the centennial warming trend 12 , in which two leading theories are proposed. One asserts that the recent warming hiatus likely results from a La Niña-like state or a negative phase of Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) associated with the cooling tropical Pacific sea surface temperature (SST) and the increasing Pacific trade winds 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 . This theory is supported by the successful simulation of the warming hiatus by nudging the tropical pacific SST or trade winds relative to observations 14 , 17 , 19 . The other suggests that the warming hiatus is accompanied by increasing heat uptake in global deep oceans 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 . This extra heat, which originates from a positive radiative imbalance at the top of the atmosphere (TOA), is reserved in the deep oceans instead of warming the Earth’s skin 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 . Note that both aforementioned hypotheses indeed include an enhancing greenhouse effect in which more heat is captured by the Earth–atmosphere system. The main difference between them is how this additional energy is prevented from warming the Earth’s surface.

The variation of T s is commonly influenced by changes in the greenhouse effect. In theory, an enhanced (reduced) greenhouse effect will accelerate (decelerate) the upward tendency of T s . However, less discussion has addressed whether the Earth’s greenhouse effect is intensified as GHGs increase from the observational perspective. A few studies have used satellite-based TOA radiation observations to detect changes related to the greenhouse effect 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 . Harries et al. 38 found that more terrestrial heat is captured by several main GHGs (e.g., CO 2 , CH 4 , and O 3 ) in clear skies because the spectral brightness temperatures in their absorption bands used to measure the upwelling thermal energy were significantly reduced. However, their experimental evidence of an enhancing greenhouse effect was largely biased because the influences of water vapor and clouds, which contribute approximately 75% of the total effect, were not included 42 . In contrast, Raval and Ramanathan 37 employed a parameter ( G a ) to quantify the magnitude of the atmospheric greenhouse effect including all potential contributors. G a is the residual obtained by subtracting the TOA outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) from the surface upwelling longwave radiation (SULR). This parameter measures the vertically integrated greenhouse effect in the entire atmosphere and enters directly into the basic equations describing the climate. Furthermore, Cess and Udelhofen 43 reported a significant decreasing tendency of normalized G a (Δ G a  =  G a /SULR) for the 40°S to 40°N domain between 1985 and 1999 based on measurements of the TOA energy budget and Earth’s surface temperature. They attributed this downward trend of the greenhouse effect to a notable reduction in cloud cover 43 .

Whether the observational greenhouse effect is intensified during the warming hiatus period remains unclear. With the steady rise of anthropogenic GHG concentrations, does the heat trapped and then re-emitted to the surface by the atmosphere also increase? In addition, the change of the Earth’s surface temperature has been shown down to be non-uniform in different regions and different sub-periods during recent decades 44 . Does the greenhouse effect have some spatial or temporal characteristics similar to those in T s ? Thus, the primary goal of this study is to investigate the spatiotemporal evolution of the greenhouse effect to better evaluate its potential impact. In this work, the monthly gridded G a between 1979 and 2014 is estimated from the High-resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder (HIRS) OLR climate dataset 45 provided by the National Center for Environmental Information (NCEI) and the HadCRUT4 surface air temperature ( T s ) dataset 46 provided by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU). The SULR is calculated using the blackbody radiation law (SULR =  σT s 4 , where σ is the Stefan–Boltzmann constant) of Raval and Ramanathan 37 . The monthly gridded surface greenhouse effect parameter ( G s ), which is defined as the downwelling longwave radiation ( F ↓) at the Earth’s surface by Boer 47 , is also obtained using a radiative transfer model from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) Energy Balanced And Filled (EBAF) product 48 .

The radiative warming effects of the atmosphere and the surface in the infrared range can be described by G a and G s 47 , whose climatological means are 158 W m −2 and 345 W m −2 , respectively, from 2003 to 2014. G a represents the ability of the atmosphere to trap approximately 40% of the longwave radiation emitted by the Earth’s surface (399 W m −2 ). G s indicates the energy sent by the atmosphere to the surface to heat the Earth. Nearly half of G s comes from G a , and the rest comprises the solar incidence, sensible and latent heat absorbed by the atmosphere 49 . Figure 1 represents the spatial patterns of the estimated mean G a and G s between 2003 and 2014.Although G a and G s are both spatially inhomogeneous, they share similar spatial distributions. First, on average, both G a and G s decrease with increasing latitude. The zonal means of G a ( G s ) are 189 W m −2 (394 W m −2 ) and 90 W m −2 (231 W m −2 ) in the tropics (30°S–30°N) and polar zones (90°S–60°S and 60°N–90°N), respectively. The latitudinal patterns of G a and G s are mostly caused by the zonal distribution of the atmospheric water vapor content, which is the most important contributor to the greenhouse effect 42 . The wetter atmosphere at low latitudes thus absorbs more terrestrial radiation than the drier atmosphere at high latitudes. The surface condition is another important contributor to the G s distribution. The wetter and warmer surface in the tropics provides greater latent and sensible heat to the atmosphere, which is included in G s 47 . Second, because more atmospheric and surface moisture is found at sea than on land, on average, the oceanic G a and G s (162 W m −2 and 358 W m −2 ) are slightly larger than the terrestrial values (148 W m −2 and 312 W m −2 ). When the large proportion of oceans covering the Earth’s surface is considered, the oceanic G a ( G s ) contributes more than three-quarters of the global total G a ( G s ). Moreover, nearly half of the global greenhouse effect is attributed to G a ( G s ) over the tropical oceans. Third, either G a or G s displays a meridional heterogeneity at the tropics. On the one hand, larger G a and G s (above 220 W m −2 and 420 W m −2 , respectively) are found in the Indo-West Pacific, Amazon and East Africa. This pattern coincides with the location of the tropical monsoons 50 that often deliver persistent convection. In the monsoon-prone areas, a stronger greenhouse effect is induced by the wetter and cloudier atmosphere and by the moist surface. On the other hand, the G a over the East Pacific and East Atlantic is relatively low (below 180 W m −2 ) because these areas are generally controlled by persistent subsidence and have dry and cloudless atmospheres.

figure 1

Spatial distributions of climatological averaged greenhouse effect parameter ( G ; unit: W m −2 ) on a 5° by 5° box between 2003 and 2014.

( a , b ) refer to the atmospheric and surface greenhouse effect parameters ( G a and G s ), respectively. The maps were generated by the Grid Analysis and Display System (GrADS; http://www.opengrads.org/doc/wind32-v1/ ) version 1.90-rc1.

Based on the climatological (2003–2014) means of G a and G s , the long-term variations of their anomalies ( G aa and G sa ) can be obtained ( Fig. 2 ). Because of the shorter period of the CERES EBAF product, the areal averaged G sa is represented only between 2003 and 2014 in Fig. 2 but shows no notable trend over the globe, sea or land. Thus, the surface greenhouse effect has not been strengthened in the last decade. The temporal variations of G sa and G aa are highly correlated over the globe, sea and land in 2003–2014, with all correlation coefficients above 0.40 and significant at the 0.01 level based on Student’s t -test. By contrast, G aa can be obtained from 1979 to 2014 because of the longer instrumental observations of T s and OLR. The most obvious feature is that the decadal trends of the global averaged G aa are not uniform throughout the period ( Fig. 2a ). In the 1980 s, a significant increasing G aa tendency exists with a linear estimate of 0.19 W m −2 yr −1 . However, this uprising trend pauses starting in circa 1992, when G aa begins to slightly decrease at a rate of −0.01 W m −2 yr −1 . This statistically non-significant trend indicates that the enhancing global atmospheric greenhouse effect is slowed down. Moreover, the atmospheric greenhouse effect hiatus can be found over both sea and land ( Fig. 2b–c ). Because the global total atmospheric greenhouse effect is largely controlled by the atmosphere over the oceans, the temporal variation of the averaged G aa at sea is similar to the global value ( Fig. 2b ). The tendency of the averaged G aa over the oceans also abruptly changes circa 1992. The oceanic G aa exhibits a notable increasing trend with a rate of 0.21 W m −2 yr −1 in 1979–1991, whereas its rate of change (−0.04 W m −2 yr −1 ) during 1992–2014 is not statistically significant. By contrast, although a sudden change in the G aa tendency is observed overland, the breakpoint is approximately 5 years later than that of the oceanic G aa ( Fig. 2c ). The terrestrial G aa trends are 0.12 W m −2 yr −1 and 0.05 W m −2 yr −1 before and after 1997, respectively.

figure 2

Monthly variations of the areal averaged atmospheric and surface greenhouse effect parameter anomalies ( G aa and G sa ) from 1979 to 2014 for the ( a ) globe, ( b ) sea and ( c ) land. G aa and G sa are represented by blue and red lines, respectively. Thin and thick solid lines indicate the monthly and 12-month moving averaged series, respectively. Vertical, thick, gray lines represent the break points of trends using the break function regression (see Methods). Green and yellow dashed lines refer to linear trend lines before and after the break points, respectively. The figure was plotted using MATLAB software.

Because G a is jointly determined by the longwave radiation at the surface and the TOA, the T s and OLR evolutions are employed to discuss the formation of the global atmospheric greenhouse effect hiatus ( Fig. S1 ). Here, the time period is divided into three 12-year subperiods (1979–1990, 1991–2002 and 2003–2014). The first break point is used to separate the varying long-term global G aa behavior in Fig. 2a . The second break point represents the beginning of the global warming pause because the increasing global averaged T s tendency slowed down in the early 21 st century 15 . In the first subperiod (1979–1990), the increasing T s leads to a remarkable uprising trend in the global averaged SULR anomaly of 0.07 W m −2 yr −1 , whereas the global averaged OLR anomaly exhibits a significant decreasing trend of −0.10 W m −2 yr −1 . Both of these behaviors enhance the atmospheric greenhouse effect, as indicated by an increase in G aa . However, in the following subperiod, the rates of change of the SULR and OLR anomalies are both significantly positive. The former (0.15 W m −2 yr −1 ) is comparable to the latter (0.14 W m −2 yr −1 ). Therefore, their contributions to the atmospheric greenhouse effect nearly cancel each other out. As a result, an unchanged global averaged G aa is shown during 1991–2002. In the last subperiod, the global averaged SULR anomaly remains trendless (0.02 W m −2 yr −1 ) because T s stops rising. Meanwhile, the long-term change of the global averaged OLR anomaly (−0.01 W m −2 yr −1 ) is also not statistically significant. Thus, these two phenomena result in a trendless G aa .

Furthermore, the trends of G aa are spatially inhomogeneous during individual subperiods ( Fig. 3 ). G aa increases the most over the central North Pacific with a tendency of approximately 0.12 W m −2 yr −1 in 1979–1990 ( Fig. 3a ). Significant upward G aa trends are also found at the tropical Atlantic and the high latitudes of Eurasia. By contrast, almost no regions exhibit a significant downward G aa trend. This finding explains why the global averaged G aa increases during this period. Similar to the previous period, an uprising G aa trend is found over the central North Pacific from 1991 to 2002 with a reduced rate ( Fig. 3b ). Meanwhile, G aa increases by substantially more in the western tropical Pacific, where the largest tendency (0.18 W m −2 yr −1 ) is found, and in the central South Pacific. However, a remarkably decreasing G aa trend (−0.27 W m −2 yr −1 ) exists over the central tropical Pacific, indicating a weakened atmospheric greenhouse effect in this area, which largely offsets the warming effect in the aforementioned surrounding regions. As a result, a trendless global averaged G aa is displayed between 1991 and 2002 ( Fig. 2 ). During the latest subperiod (2003–2014), the spatial pattern of the change in G aa is quite similar to that in 1991–2002, but the proportion of regions with significant G aa tendencies is significantly reduced ( Fig. 3c ). Although the maximum upward and downward G aa tendencies also appear over the western tropical Pacific and the central tropical Pacific, respectively, the increasing trend is nearly absent in the extratropics. Again, no significant trend of the global averaged G aa is found from 2003 to 2014 ( Fig. 2 ) because the enhanced warming effect over the western tropical Pacific is largely counteracted by the weakened warming influence on the central tropical Pacific.

figure 3

Spatial structures of the atmospheric greenhouse effect parameter anomaly ( G aa ) trend on a 5° by 5° box using the least-squares approach during three subperiods: ( a ) 1979–1990, ( b ) 1991–2002, and ( c ) 2003–2004. Regions with a significant tendency (at the 0.05 confidence level based on the F -test) are crossed. Maps were generated by GrADS ( http://www.opengrads.org/doc/wind32-v1/ ) version 1.90-rc1.

The results above indicate that the notably downward G aa tendency over the central tropical Pacific indeed plays an important role in inducing the greenhouse effect hiatus since the 1990 s. What causes this decreasing G aa ? The variation of the greenhouse effect is substantially influenced by its contributors, including water vapor, clouds, and GHGs 42 . GHG concentrations have risen steadily during recent decades 1 . The variations of metrics related to the other two contributors are given in Fig. 4a and are based on the CERES-EBAF products between 2003 and 2014. The total column precipitable water (TCPW) anomaly significantly increases at a rate of 0.44 cm yr −1 . However, the cloud area fraction (CAF) anomaly is reduced by −0.60% yr −1 , which is consistent with the decreasing cloud activity described in previous publications 51 . Therefore, although the greenhouse effect can be enhanced by increasing GHGs and water vapor in the atmosphere, it can be weakened by decreasing clouds. If these two actions offset each other, a hiatus of the global greenhouse effect will result. To confirm this, the variations of G aa and G sa in all-sky conditions are compared with those in clear-sky conditions in Fig. 4b,c . The clear-sky atmospheric and surface greenhouse effect parameters increase significantly at rates of 0.22 W m −2 yr −1 and 0.19 W m −2 yr −1 , respectively. However, the atmospheric and surface greenhouse effect parameters both become trendless when clouds are considered. Moreover, the spatial pattern of the CAF anomaly trend ( Fig. S2 ) is very similar to that of the G aa trend ( Fig. 3c ) during 2003–2014. Cloud activity becomes less active over the central tropical Pacific, whereas it is enhanced over the western and eastern tropical Pacific. Overall, the downward tendency of clouds is the dominant contributor to the greenhouse effect hiatus.

figure 4

( a ) Monthly variations of the global averaged TCPW (unit: cm) and CAF (unit: %) anomalies between 2003 and 2014. Dashed lines are the linear trend lines obtained by the least squares method. ( b ) Monthly variations of the atmospheric greenhouse effect parameter anomaly ( G aa ; unit: W m −2 ) from 2003 to 2014 for all-sky (red lines) and clear-sky (blue lines) conditions. Dashed lines are the linear trend lines obtained by the least squares method. ( c ) Same as ( b ) but for the surface greenhouse effect parameter anomaly ( G sa ; unit: W m −2 ). The figure was plotted using MATLAB software.

Interestingly, the spatial structure exhibits a seesaw pattern between the central tropical Pacific and the western/eastern tropical Pacific in both the G aa tendency and CAF anomaly trend from 2003 to 2014 ( Fig. 3c , Fig. S2 ). This pattern is similar to that of the composited SST anomaly in strong La Niña events 51 , 52 . Further, the decreasing G aa trend can result from La Niña events occurring more frequently in the last two decades. The Niño 3.4 SST anomaly shows no significant tendency between 1979 and 1990, whereas it decreases remarkably after 1990 at a rate of −0.028 °C yr −1 ( Fig. S3 ). Notably, the first half of the downward Niño 3.4 SST anomaly trend is much larger than the second half. This finding is consistent with a stronger decreasing G aa trend over the central tropical Pacific during 1991–2002 ( Fig. 3 ). Strong La Niña events are associated with strong anomalous cooling and suppressed convection in the central tropical Pacific 52 , 53 . Therefore, this La Niña-related phenomenon can reduce atmospheric water vapor content and cloud volume and further weaken the greenhouse effect over the central tropical Pacific.

The Earth’s environment is suitable for life because of the greenhouse effect. Our planet has become increasingly warm since the Industrial Revolution because of the increased GHG emissions, which greatly enhance the greenhouse effect. However, the uprising rate of the Earth’s T s has slowed down in recent years. Whether this global warming pause is accompanied by a hiatus of the greenhouse effect is investigated in this study. The regional and global greenhouse effects are quantitatively estimated from reliable T s observations and consistent OLR satellite products in 1979–2014. Although the change of OLR is theoretically in accordance with that of the tropospheric temperature according to the Stefan–Boltzmann Law, in reality, their relationship is more complex 54 . Different tendencies of OLR and T s can be seen in different periods, leading to an atmospheric and surface greenhouse effect hiatus since the early 1990 s. This pause exists not only over the oceans but also over the continents. Further analysis indicates that this hiatus is very likely a result of the occurrence of more La Niña events after 1992. In the strong La Niña phase, both the atmospheric water vapor and the cloud volume are greatly reduced over the central tropical Pacific, amplifying the regional weakened greenhouse effect. Therefore, G aa decreases significantly during 1992–2014 over the central tropical Pacific, which offsets the upward G aa tendencies occurring elsewhere.

Interestingly, the atmospheric greenhouse effect hiatus occurs ahead of the global warming slowdown. Does the former lead to the latter? To answer this question, the cross-correlation coefficients between the G aa and the T s anomaly ( T a ) on different timescales are given in Fig. 5 . The simultaneous correlations are largest on the whole timescales, which likely indicates a positive feedback between T s and the greenhouse effect. By contrast, the secondary maximum consistently appears with a lag of approximately 5 years. Moreover, larger and more significant correlations are found when G aa leads T a than when G aa trails T a . Thus, the variability of T a may depend on the foregoing change of G aa . In conclusion, the pause of the greenhouse effect since the 1990 s may be one of the reasons for the global warming hiatus starting in the early 2000 s.

figure 5

Cross-correlation coefficients between the global averaged atmospheric greenhouse effect parameter anomaly ( G aa ) and the global mean surface temperature anomaly ( T a ) on three time scales: ( a ) monthly, ( b ) seasonal and ( c ) annual. The horizontal dashed line refers to the significance at the 0.05 level. Positive (negative) lags indicate that T a leads (trails) G aa . The figure was plotted using MATLAB software.

It is well accepted that the recent global warming slowdown is attributable to the joint effect of internal natural variability and external forcing 12 . In general, the warming hiatus is mainly driven by internal variability such as a negative phase of the IPO as well as a more La Niña-dominated state, with a minor external contribution 8 . However, a recent study found that the phase of the IPO could be modulated by anthropogenic aerosols, in which case external forcing was attributed to be the primary factor decelerating global warming 55 . By contrast, this study is not focused on the potential causes of different IPO or ENSO phases. Instead, we represent an alternative pathway of internal variability driving the warming slowdown. A La Niña-like state suppresses convection in the tropical central Pacific and concomitantly reduces cloud coverage. Consequently, a zero-trend greenhouse effect is achieved under the balance of its primary contributors (e.g. water vapor, clouds, and GHGs). Finally, the hiatus of the greenhouse effect-driven warming leads to the recent global warming slowdown, in which the atmosphere traps (emits) near constant heat from (to) the surface.

Surface temperature ( T s )

The global monthly absolute T s records are derived by combining the temperature anomaly and the base temperature with a spatial resolution of 5°long × 5°lat from 1979 to 2014. The combined land and marine T s anomalies relative to the base period 1961–1990 are provided by the joint work of the CRU of the University of East Anglia and the Hadley Centre of the UK Met Office 56 . The corresponding absolute T s for the aforementioned base period is given by Jones et al. 57 .

The global monthly product of OLR at the TOA is obtained from the Climate Data Record (CDR) program organized by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in 1979–2014 45 . These consistent, long-term OLR records are derived using the radiance observations from the HIRS onboard the NOAA Television Infrared Observation Satellite (TIROS)-N series and the Eumetsat MetOp-A satellites. The original gridded 2.5° × 2.5° OLR data are interpolated on a 5° by 5° box.

NASA CERES EBAF satellite products

The monthly OLR and surface downwelling longwave radiation in all-sky and clear-sky conditions between 2003 and 2014 are provided by the NASA CERES EBAF product 48 . The monthly CAF and TCPW are from the same product. The original gridded 1° × 1° data are all interpolated on a 5° by 5° box.

Atmospheric greenhouse effect parameter ( G a )

Surface greenhouse effect parameter ( g s ), break function regression.

This procedure objectively estimates the change point of different tendencies in time series by combining a weighted least-squares criterion with a brute-force search and the linear trends before and after the discontinuity 58 . It is similar to the piecewise linear regression method with one change point reported in other publications 6 , 59 , 60 . The break function model for time series X(T ), written as

has four parameters: x 1, x 2, x 3 and t 2. The former three can be estimated using the least-squares approach when t 2 is fixed. The break point t 2 is determined by maximizing the explained variance. The trends before and after the break point are determined as ( x 2- x 1)/( t 2- t 1) and ( x 3- x 2)/( t 3- t 2), respectively.

Trend analysis

The time series trend is estimated by the least squares method. In this study, the tendency is considered significant when it passes the F -test at the 0.05 level.

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Acknowledgements

This work was jointly funded by the National Grand Fundamental Research 973 Program of China (2015CB452800) and the National Science Foundation of China (grant 41375075). We would like to thank Dr. Hai-Tien Lee for suggestions related to the HIRS OLR data set. We would like to thank Dr. Phil Klotzbach at Colorado State University for improving the language. We wish to express our sincere thanks to the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier manuscript.

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Song, J., Wang, Y. & Tang, J. A Hiatus of the Greenhouse Effect. Sci Rep 6 , 33315 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/srep33315

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greenhouse effect scientific paper

REVIEW article

Climate change and the impact of greenhouse gasses: co2 and no, friends and foes of plant oxidative stress.

\r\nRaúl Cassia*

  • Instituto de Investigaciones Biológicas, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata-Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Mar del Plata, Argentina

Here, we review information on how plants face redox imbalance caused by climate change, and focus on the role of nitric oxide (NO) in this response. Life on Earth is possible thanks to greenhouse effect. Without it, temperature on Earth’s surface would be around -19 ∘ C, instead of the current average of 14 ∘ C. Greenhouse effect is produced by greenhouse gasses (GHG) like water vapor, carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), methane (CH 4 ), nitrous oxides (N x O) and ozone (O 3 ). GHG have natural and anthropogenic origin. However, increasing GHG provokes extreme climate changes such as floods, droughts and heat, which induce reactive oxygen species (ROS) and oxidative stress in plants. The main sources of ROS in stress conditions are: augmented photorespiration, NADPH oxidase (NOX) activity, β-oxidation of fatty acids and disorders in the electron transport chains of mitochondria and chloroplasts. Plants have developed an antioxidant machinery that includes the activity of ROS detoxifying enzymes [e.g., superoxide dismutase (SOD), ascorbate peroxidase (APX), catalase (CAT), glutathione peroxidase (GPX), and peroxiredoxin (PRX)], as well as antioxidant molecules such as ascorbic acid (ASC) and glutathione (GSH) that are present in almost all subcellular compartments. CO 2 and NO help to maintain the redox equilibrium. Higher CO 2 concentrations increase the photosynthesis through the CO 2 -unsaturated Rubisco activity. But Rubisco photorespiration and NOX activities could also augment ROS production. NO regulate the ROS concentration preserving balance among ROS, GSH, GSNO, and ASC. When ROS are in huge concentration, NO induces transcription and activity of SOD, APX, and CAT. However, when ROS are necessary (e.g., for pathogen resistance), NO may inhibit APX, CAT, and NOX activity by the S-nitrosylation of cysteine residues, favoring cell death. NO also regulates GSH concentration in several ways. NO may react with GSH to form GSNO, the NO cell reservoir and main source of S-nitrosylation. GSNO could be decomposed by the GSNO reductase (GSNOR) to GSSG which, in turn, is reduced to GSH by glutathione reductase (GR). GSNOR may be also inhibited by S-nitrosylation and GR activated by NO. In conclusion, NO plays a central role in the tolerance of plants to climate change.

Introduction

Life on Earth, as it is, relies on the natural atmospheric greenhouse effect. This is the result of a process in which a planet’s atmosphere traps the sun radiation and warms the planet’s surface.

Greenhouse effect occurs in the troposphere (the lower atmosphere layer), where life and weather occur. In the absence of greenhouse effect, the average temperature on Earth’s surface is estimated around -19°C, instead of the current average of 14°C ( Le Treut et al., 2007 ). Greenhouse effect is produced by greenhouse gasses (GHG). GHG are those gaseous constituents of the atmosphere that absorb and emit radiation in the thermal infrared range ( IPCC, 2014 ). Traces of GHG, both natural and anthropogenic, are present in the troposphere. The most abundant GHG in increasing order of importance are: water vapor, carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), methane (CH 4 ), nitrous oxides (N x O) and ozone (O 3 ) ( Kiehl and Trenberth, 1997 ). GHG percentages vary daily, seasonally, and annually.

GHG Contribute Differentially to Greenhouse Effect

Water vapor.

Water is present in the troposphere both as vapor and clouds. Water vapor was reported by Tyndal in 1861 as the most important gaseous absorber of variations in infrared radiation (cited in Held and Souden, 2000 ). Further accurate calculation estimate that water vapor and clouds are responsible for 49 and 25%, respectively, of the long wave (thermal) absorption ( Schmidt et al., 2010 ). However, atmospheric lifetime of water vapor is short (days) compared to other GHG as CO 2 (years) ( IPCC, 2014 ).

Water vapor concentrations are not directly influenced by anthropogenic activity and vary regionally. However, human activity increases global temperatures and water vapor formation indirectly, amplifying the warming in a process known as water vapor feedback ( Soden et al., 2005 ).

Carbon Dioxide (CO 2 )

Carbon dioxide is responsible for 20% of the thermal absorption ( Schmidt et al., 2010 ).

Natural sources of CO 2 include organic decomposition, ocean release and respiration. Anthropogenic CO 2 sources are derived from activities such as cement manufacturing, deforestation, fossil fuels combustion such as coal, oil and natural gas, etc. Surprisingly, 24% of direct CO 2 emission comes from agriculture, forestry and other land use, and 21% comes from industry ( IPCC, 2014 ).

Atmospheric CO 2 concentrations climbed up dramatically in the past two centuries, rising from around 270 μmol.mol -1 in 1750 to present concentrations higher than 385 μmol.mol -1 ( Mittler and Blumwald, 2010 ; IPCC, 2014 ). Around 50% of cumulative anthropogenic CO 2 emissions between 1750 and 2010 have taken place since the 1970s ( IPCC, 2014 ). It is calculated that the temperature rise produced by high CO 2 concentrations, plus the water positive feedback, would increase by 3–5°C the global mean surface temperature in 2100 ( IPCC, 2014 ).

Methane (CH 4 )

Methane (CH 4 ) is the main atmospheric organic trace gas. CH 4 is the primary component of natural gas, a worldwide fuel source. Significant emissions of CH 4 result from cattle farming and agriculture, but mainly as a consequence of fossil fuel use. Concentrations of CH 4 were multiplied by two since the pre-industrial era. The present worldwide-averaged concentration is of 1.8 μmol.mol -1 ( IPCC, 2014 ).

Although its concentration represents only 0.5% that of CO 2 , concerns arise regarding a jump in CH 4 atmospheric release. Indeed, it is 30 times more powerful than CO 2 as GHG ( IPCC, 2014 ). CH 4 generates O 3 (see below), and along with carbon monoxide (CO), contributes to control the amount of OH in the troposphere ( Wuebbles and Hayhoe, 2002 ).

Nitrous Oxides (NxO)

Nitrous oxide (N 2 O) and nitric oxide (NO) are GHG. During the last century, their global emissions have rised, due mainly to human intervention ( IPCC, 2014 ). The soil emits both N 2 O and NO. N 2 O is a strong GHG, whereas NO contributes indirectly to O 3 synthesis. As GHG, N 2 O is potentially 300 times stronger than CO 2 . Once in the stratosphere, the former catalyzes the elimination of O 3 ( IPCC, 2014 ). In the atmosphere, N 2 O concentrations are climbing up due mainly to microbial activity in nitrogen (N)-rich soils related with agricultural and fertilization practices ( Hall et al., 2008 ).

Anthropogenic emissions (from combustion of fossil fuels) and biogenic emissions from soils are the main sources of NO in the atmosphere ( Medinets et al., 2015 ). In the troposphere, NO quickly oxidizes to nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ). NO and NO 2 (termed as NO x ) may react with volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and hydroxyl, resulting in organic nitrates and nitric acid, respectively. They access ecosystems through atmospheric deposition that has an impact on the N cycle as a result of acidification or N enrichment ( Pilegaard, 2013 ).

NO Sources and Chemical Reactions in Plants

Two major pathways for NO production have been described in plants: the reductive and the oxidative pathways. The reductive pathway involves the reduction of nitrite to NO by NR under conditions such as acidic pH, anoxia, or an increase in nitrite levels ( Rockel et al., 2002 ; Meyer et al., 2005 ). NR-dependent NO formation has been involved in processes such as stomatal closure, root development, germination and immune responses. In plants, nitrite may also be reduced enzymatically by other molybdenum enzymes such as, xanthine oxidase, aldehyde oxidase, and sulfite oxidase, in animals ( Chamizo-Ampudia et al., 2016 ) or via the electron transport system in mitochondria ( Gupta and Igamberdiev, 2016 ).

The oxidative pathway produces NO through the oxidation of organic compounds such as polyamines, hydroxylamine and arginine. In animals, NOS catalyzes arginine oxidation to citrulline and NO. Many efforts were made to find the arginine-dependent NO formation in plants, as well as of plant NOS ( Frohlich and Durner, 2011 ). The identification of NOS in the green alga Ostreococcus tauri ( Foresi et al., 2010 ) led to high-throughput bioinformatic analysis in plant genomes. This study shows that NOS homologs were not present in over 1,000 genomes of higher plants analyzed, but only in few photosynthetic microorganisms, such as algae and diatoms ( Di Dato et al., 2015 ; Kumar et al., 2015 ; Jeandroz et al., 2016 ). In summary, although an arginine-dependent NO production is found in higher plants, the specific enzyme/s involved in the oxidative pathways remain elusive.

Ozone (O 3 )

Ozone (O 3 ) is mainly found in the stratosphere, but a little amount is generated in the troposphere. Stratospheric ozone (namely the ozone layer) is formed naturally by chemical reactions involving solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation and O 2 . Solar UV radiation breaks one O 2 molecule, producing two oxygen atoms (2 O). Then, each of these highly reactive atoms combines with O 2 to produce an (O 3 ) molecule. Almost 99% of the Sun’s medium-frequency UV light (from about 200 to 315 nm wavelength) is absorbed by the (O 3 ) layer. Otherwise, they could damage exposed life forms near the Earth surface 1 .

The majority of tropospheric O 3 appears when NOx, CO and VOCs, react in the presence of sunlight. However, it was reported that NOx may scavenge O 3 in urban areas ( Gregg et al., 2003 ). This dual interaction between NOx and O 3 is influenced by light, season, temperature and VOC concentration ( Jhun et al., 2015 ).

Besides, the oxidation of CH 4 by OH in the troposphere gives way to formaldehyde (CH 2 O), CO, and O 3 , in the presence of high amounts of NOx 1 .

Tropospheric O 3 is harmful to both plants and animals (including humans). O 3 affects plants in several ways. Stomata are the cells, mostly on the underside of the plant leaves, that allow CO 2 and water to diffuse into the tissue. High concentrations of O 3 cause plants to close their stomata ( McAdam et al., 2017 ), slowing down photosynthesis and plant growth. O 3 may also provoke strong oxidative stress, damaging plant cells ( Vainonen and Kangasjärvi, 2015 ).

Global Climate Change: an Integrative Balance of the Impact on Plants

Anthropogenic activity alters global climate by interfering with the flows of energy through changes in atmospheric gasses composition, more than the actual generation of heat due to energy usage ( Karl and Trenberth, 2003 ). Short-term consequences of GHG increase in plants are mainly associated with the rise in atmospheric CO 2 . Plants respond directly to elevated CO 2 increasing net photosynthesis, and decreasing stomatal opening ( Long et al., 2004 ). To a lesser extent, O 3 uptake by plants may reduce photosynthesis and induce oxidative stress. In the middle and long term, prognostic consensus about climate change signal a rise in CO 2 concentration and temperature on the Earth’s surface, unexpected variations in rainfall, and more recurrent and intense weather conditions, e.g., heat waves, drought and flooding events ( Mittler and Blumwald, 2010 ; IPCC, 2014 ). These brief episodes bring plants beyond their capacity of adaptation; decreasing crop and tree yield ( Ciais et al., 2005 ; Zinta et al., 2014 ).

Here we will not discuss plants capacity of adaptation to novel environmental conditions when considering large scales and long-term periods. Ecosystems are being affected by climate change at all levels (terrestrial, freshwater, and marine), and it was already reported that species are under evolutionary adaptation to human-caused climate change (for a review see Scheffers et al., 2016 ). Migration and plasticity are two biological mechanisms to cope with these changes. Data indicate that each population of a species has limited tolerance to sharp climate variations, and they could migrate to find more favorable environments. Habitat fragmentation limits plant movement, being other big threat for adaptation ( Stockwell et al., 2003 ; Leimu et al., 2010 ). Despite the fact that individual plants are immobile, plant populations move when seeds are dispersed, resulting in differences in the general distribution of the species ( Corlett and Westcott, 2013 ). In this sense, anthropogenic activities also contribute to seed dispersal.

Plasticity is a characteristic related to phenology and phenotype. Phenology is the timing of phases occurrence in the life cycle, and phenotypic plasticity is the range of phenotypes that a single genotype may express depending on its environment ( Nicotra et al., 2010 ). Plasticity is adaptive when the phenotype changes occur in a direction favored by selection in the new environment.

Climate Change and ROS

Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) are continuously generated by plants under normal conditions. However, they are increased in response to different abiotic stresses. One of the most important effects of climate change-related stresses at the molecular level is the increase of ROS inside the cells ( Farnese et al., 2016 ). Among ROS, the most studied are superoxide anion ( O 2 •– ), H 2 O 2 and the hydroxyl radical (⋅OH - ).

Reactive Oxygen Species cause damage to proteins, lipids and DNA, affecting cell integrity, morphology, physiology, and, consequently, the growth of plants ( Frohnmeyer and Staiger, 2003 ). The main sources of ROS in stress conditions are: augmented photorespiration, NADPH oxidase (NOX) activity, β-oxidation of fatty acids and disorders in the electron transport chains of mitochondrias and chloroplasts ( Apel and Hirt, 2004 ; AbdElgawad et al., 2015 ). Hence, higher plants have evolved in the presence of ROS and have acquired pathways to protect themselves from its toxicity. Plant antioxidant system (AS) includes the activity of ROS detoxifying enzymes [e.g., superoxide dismutase (SOD), ascorbate peroxidase (APX), catalase (CAT), glutathione peroxidase (GPX), and peroxiredoxin (PRX)], as well as antioxidant molecules such as ascorbic acid (ASC) and glutathione (GSH) that are present in almost all subcellular compartments (reviewed by Choudhury et al., 2017 ).

In this context, plants have also developed a tight interaction between ROS and NO as a mechanism to reduce the deleterious consequences of these ROS-induced oxidative injuries. NO orchestrates a wide range of mechanisms leading to the preservation of redox homeostasis in plants. Consequently, NO at low concentration is considered a broad-spectrum anti-stress molecule ( Lamattina et al., 2003 ; Tossi et al., 2009 ; Correa-Aragunde et al., 2015 ). Figure 1 shows the relationship among the different GHG and their impact on plants.

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FIGURE 1. Simplified scheme showing greenhouse gasses (GHG) and their effects on plants. GHG (H 2 O vapor, clouds, CO 2 , CH 4 , N 2 O, and NO) have both natural and anthropogenic origin, contributing to greenhouse effect. Short-term effects of GHG increase is mainly CO 2 rise, that activates photosynthesis (PS) and inhibits stomatal opening (SO). Long-term effects of GHG increase are extreme climate changes such as floods, droughts, heat. All of them induce the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and oxidative stress in plants. Nitric oxide (NO) could alleviate oxidative stress by scavenging ROS and/or regulating the antioxidant system (AS). GHG and volatile organic compounds (VOC) react in presence of sunlight (E#) to give tropospheric O 3 . Although tropospheric O 3 is prejudicial for life, stratospheric O 3 is beneficial, because filters harmful UV-B radiation. The size of arrows are representative of the GHG concentration.

CO 2 and NO Contribute to Regulate Redox Homeostasis in Plants

Co 2 increasing: advantages and disadvantages.

Increased CO 2 was suggested to have a “fertilization” effect, because crops would increase their photosynthesis and stomatal conductance in response to elevated CO 2 . This belief was supported by studies performed in greenhouses, laboratory controlled-environment chambers, and transparent field chambers, where emitted CO 2 may be held back and readily controlled ( Drake et al., 1997 ; Markelz et al., 2014 ). However, more realistic results, obtained by Free-Air Concentration Enrichment (FACE) technology, suggest that the fertilization response due to CO 2 increase is probably dependent on genetic and environmental factors, and the duration of the study ( Smith and Dukes, 2013 ). An extensive review of the literature in this field made by Xu et al. (2015) concluded that augmented CO 2 normally increases photosynthesis in C3 species such as rice, soybean and wheat. On the other hand, they pointed out that a negative feedback of photosynthesis could take place in augmented CO 2 , as a result of overload of chemical and reactive generated substrates, leading to an imbalance in the sink:source carbon ratio. Moreover, the energetic cost of carbohydrate exportation increases in elevated CO 2 level.

The most important photosynthetic enzyme is the ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase-oxygenase (RuBisCO). Rubisco is located in mesophyll cells of C3 plants, in direct contact with the intercellular air space linked to the atmosphere by epidermal stomatal pores. Photosynthesis increases at high CO 2 , because Rubisco is not CO 2 saturated and CO 2 inhibits the oxygenation reactions and photorespiration ( Long et al., 2006 ). However, long-term high concentration of CO 2 may down regulate Rubisco activity because ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate is not regenerated. Hexokinase (HXK), a sensor of extreme photosynthate, may participate in the down regulation of Rubisco concentration ( Xu et al., 2015 ). Moreover, severe abiotic stresses, such as temperature and drought, may restrain Rubisco carboxylation and foster oxygenation ( Xu et al., 2015 ).

In C4 crops, such as maize and sorghum, the elevated concentration of CO 2 inside the bundle sheath cells could prevent a large increase of Rubisco activity at higher atmospheric CO 2 and, thereby, photosynthetic activity is not augmented. However, at high CO 2 levels, the water status of C4 plants under drought conditions is improved, increasing photosynthesis and biomass accumulation ( Long et al., 2006 ; Mittler and Blumwald, 2010 ). That envisages potential advantages for the C4 species in future climatic change scenarios, particularly in arid and semiarid areas.

In addition, high CO 2 has the benefit of reducing stomatal conductance, decreasing 10% evapotranspiration in both C3 and C4 plants. Simultaneously, the cooling decreased resulting from reduced transpiration causes elevated canopy temperatures of around 0.7°C for most crops. Biomass and yield rise due to high CO 2 in all C3 plants, but not in C4 plants exception made when water is a restraint. Yields of C3 grain crops jump around 19% on average at high CO 2 ( Kimball, 2016 ).

Some reports analyze the contribution of CO 2 in the responses of plants to the combination of multiple stresses. For Arabidopsis thaliana , the combination of heat and drought induces photosynthesis inhibition of 62% under ambient CO 2 , but the drop in photosynthesis is just 40% at high CO 2 . Moreover, the protein oxidation increases significantly during a heat wave and drought, and this effect is repressed by increased CO 2 . Photorespiration is also reduced by high CO 2 ( Zinta et al., 2014 ).

Studying grasses ( Lolium perenne, Poa pratensis ) and legumes ( Medicago lupulina, Lotus corniculatus ) exposed to drought, high temperature and augmented CO 2 , AbdElgawad et al. (2015) demonstrated that drought suppresses plant growth, photosynthesis and stomatal conductance, and promotes in all species the synthesis of osmolytes and antioxidants. Instead, oxidative damage is more markedly observed in legumes than in grasses. In general, warming amplifies drought consequences. In contrast, augmented CO 2 diminishes stress impact. Reduction in photosynthesis and chlorophyll, as a result of drought and elevated temperature, were avoided by high CO 2 in the grasses. Noxious effects of oxidative stress, i.e., lipid peroxidation, are phased down in all species by augmented CO 2 . Normally, a reduced impact of oxidative stress is due to decreased photorespiration and diminished NOX activity. In legumes, a rise in levels of antioxidant molecules (flavonoids and tocopherols) contribute as well to the stress mitigation caused by augmented CO 2 . The authors draw the conclusion that these different responses point at an unequal future impact of climate change on the production of agricultural-scale legumes and grass crops.

Kumari et al. (2015) assessed the impact of various levels of CO 2 , ambient (382 ppm) and augmented (570 ppm), and O 3 , ambient (50 ppb) and augmented (70 ppb) on the potato physiological and biochemical responses ( Solanum tuberosum ). They observed that augmented CO 2 cut down O 3 uptake, enhanced carbon assimilation, and curbed oxidative stress. Elevated CO 2 also mitigated the noxious effect of high O 3 on photosynthesis.

Although some molecular mechanisms underpinning CO 2 actions are unknown, the results presented highlight the importance of CO 2 as a regulator that mitigates the potential climate change-induced deleterious consequences in plants. Recent reports suggest that some CO 2 -associated responses may be mediated by NO.

Du et al. (2016) determined that 800 μmol.mol -1 of CO 2 increased the NO concentration in Arabidopsis leaves, through a mechanism related to nitrate availability. Moreover, NO increase, as a consequence of high CO 2 levels, was reported as a general procedure to improve iron (Fe) nutrition in response to Fe deficiency in tomato roots ( Jin et al., 2009 ).

The gas exchange between the atmosphere and plants is mainly regulated by stomata. But structure and physiology of stomata are also influenced by gasses ( García-Mata and Lamattina, 2013 ). Elevated CO 2 regulate stomatal density and conductance. Moreover, there is increasing evidence that this response is modified by interaction of CO 2 with other environmental factors ( Xu et al., 2016 ; Yan et al., 2017 ). Wang et al. (2015) reported that 800 μmol.mol -1 of CO 2 increases the NO concentration in A. thaliana guard cells, inducing stomatal closure. Both NR and NO synthase (NOS)-like activities are necessary for CO 2 -induced NO accumulation. Comprehensive pharmacological and genetic results obtained in Arabidopsis by Chater et al. (2015) , show that when CO 2 concentration is around 700–1000 ppm, stomatal density and closure are reduced. They also illustrate that those elements necessary for this process are: activation of both ABA biosynthesis genes and the PYR/RCAR ABA receptor, and ROS increase. However, Shi et al. (2015) provide genetic and pharmacological evidence that high CO 2 concentration induces stomatal closure by an ABA-independent mechanism in tomato. They show that 800 μmol.mol -1 of CO 2 increase the expression of the protein kinase OPEN STOMATA 1 (OST1), NOX, and nitrate reductase (NR) genes. They also show that the sequential production of NOX-dependent H 2 O 2 and NR-produced NO are mainly dependent of OST1, and are involved in the CO 2 -induced stomatal closure.

In ABA-dependent mechanisms, ABA is increased by CO 2. The binding of ABA to its receptor (PYR/RCAR) inactivates PP2C, activating OST1. In ABA-independent mechanism, OST1 will be transcriptionally induced by CO 2 . Once activated, OST1 along with Ca 2 + , activates NOX, increasing ROS ( Kim et al., 2010 ). The rise of guard cells ROS enhances NO, cytosolic free Ca 2 + , and pH ( Song et al., 2014 ; Xie et al., 2014 ). ROS and NO release Ca 2 + from internal reservoirs, or influx external Ca 2 + through plasma membrane Ca 2 + in channels. Cytosolic free Ca 2 + inactivate inward K + channels (K + in ) to prevent K + uptake and activate outward K + channels (K + out ) and Cl - (anion) channels (Cl - ) at the plasma membrane ( Blatt, 2000 ; García-Mata et al., 2003 ). Ca 2 + also activates slow anion channel homolog 3 (SLAH3), slow anion channel-associated 1 (SLAC1) and aluminum activated malate transporters (ALMT) ( Roelfsema et al., 2012 ). The consequence of the regulation of cation/anion channels is the net efflux of K + /Cl - /malate and influx of Ca 2 + , making guard cells lose turgor by water outlet, causing stomatal closure.

All together, the results discussed here suggest that CO 2 -induced NO increase is a common plant physiological response to oxidative stresses. Figure 2 shows the importance of CO 2 and NO in these processes.

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FIGURE 2. Interplay between CO 2 and NO in plant redox physiology: CO 2 enters to the leaves by stomata. Once in mesophyll cells, CO 2 increase photosynthesis (PS) through the CO 2 -unsaturated Rubisco activity. When plants are in stress environments, ROS could be augmented by Rubisco-induced photorespiration and NADPH oxidase (NOX) activities. NOX- induced O 2 •– , in the apoplast is immediately transformed to H 2 O 2 by the superoxide dismutase (SOD). Plasma membrane is permeable to H 2 O 2 . CO 2 moderates oxidative stress in mesophyll cells by inhibiting both Rubisco photorespiration (PR) and NOX activities. Besides, NO is induced by CO 2 and ROS, alleviating the consequences of oxidative stress by scavenging ROS and activating or inhibiting the antioxidant system (AS). In guard cells, CO 2 increases the expression and activity of OPEN STOMATA 1 (OST1), in both ABA-dependent and independent mechanisms. OST1 activates NOX, producing ROS and consequently NO increase by nitrate reductase (NR), and NOS-like activities. NO prevents ROS increase by direct scavenging, and inhibiting NOX. NO-dependent Ca 2 + regulated ion channels induces stomatal closure, modulating O 3 and CO 2 uptake, decreasing evapotranspiration, and rising leaf temperature.

Abiotic Stress, ROS Generation, and Redox Balance: The Key Role of NO

Reactive oxygen species are generated in apoplast, plasma membrane, chloroplasts, mitochondria, and peroxisomes ( Farnese et al., 2016 ). It was proposed that each stress produces its own “ROS signature” ( Choudhury et al., 2017 ). For instance, drought may reduce the activity of Rubisco, decreasing CO 2 fixation and NADP+ regeneration by the Calvin cycle. As a consequence, chloroplast electron transport is altered, generating ROS by electron leakage to O 2 ( Carvalho, 2008 ). In drought stress, ROS increase is produced by NOX activity ( Farnese et al., 2016 ). In flooding, ROS generation is an ethylene-promoted process that involves calcium (Ca 2+ ) flux, and NOX activity ( Voesenek and Bailey-Serres, 2015 ).

In heat stress, a NOX-dependent transient ROS rise is an early event ( Königshofer et al., 2008 ). Then, endogenous ROS are sensed through histidine kinases, and an Arabidopsis heat stress factor (HsfA4a) appears to sense exogenous ROS. As a result, the MAPK signal pathway is activated ( Qu et al., 2013 ). Moreover, functional decrease in photosynthetic light reaction induces ROS concentration by high electron leakage from the thylakoid membrane ( Hasanuzzaman et al., 2013 ). In this process, O 2 is the acceptor, generating O 2 •– .

Thus, individual stresses or their different combinations may produce particular “ROS signatures.” Besides their deleterious effects, ROS are recognized as a signal in the plant reaction to biotic and abiotic stressors. ROS may induce programed cell death (PCD) to avoid pathogen spread ( Mur et al., 2008 ), trigger a systemic defense response signal ( Dubiella et al., 2013 ), or avoid the chloroplast antenna overloading by electrons divert ( Choudhury et al., 2017 ).

Whatever the origin and function, ROS concentration must be adequately regulated to avoid excessive concentration and consequent cellular damages. Depending on NO and ROS concentrations, NO has the dual capacity to activate or inhibit the ROS production, and is a key molecule for keeping cellular redox homeostasis under control ( Beligni and Lamattina, 1999a ; Correa-Aragunde et al., 2015 ). NO has a direct ROS-scavenging activity because it holds an unpaired electron, reaching elevated reactivity with O 2 , O 2 •– , and redox active metals. NO can mitigate OH formation by scavenging either Fe or O 2 •– ( Lamattina et al., 2003 ). However, NO reacting with ROS (mainly O 2 •– ) may generate reactive nitrogen species (RNS). An excess of RNS originates a nitrosative stress ( Corpas et al., 2011 ). To avoid the toxicity of nitrosative stress, NO is stored as GSNO in the cell.

GSH as a Redox Buffer. GSNO as NO Reservoir. SNO and S-Nitrosylation

Glutathione (GSH) is a small peptide with the sequence γ-l-glutamyl-l-cysteinyl-glycine that has a cell redox homeostatic impact in most plant tissues. It is a soluble small thiol considered a non-enzymatic antioxidant. It exists in the reduced (GSH) or oxidized state (GSSG), in which two GSH molecules are joined by a disulfide bond ( Rouhier et al., 2008 ). GSH alleviates oxidative damages in plants generated by abiotic stresses, including salinity, drought, higher, low temperature, and heavy metals. GSH is precursor of phytochelatins, polymers that chelate toxic metals and transport them to the vacuole ( Grill et al., 1989 ). Studies shown that GSH contributes to tolerate nickel, cadmium, zinc, mercury, aluminum and arsenate heavy metals in plants ( Asgher et al., 2017 ). Moreover, GSH has a role in the detoxification of ROS both directly, interacting with them, or indirectly, participating of enzymatic pathways. GSH is involved in glutathionylation, a posttranslational modification that causes a mixed disulfide bond between a Cys residue and GSH.

GSH can be oxidized to GSSG by H 2 O 2 and can react with NO to form the nitrosoglutathione (GSNO) derivative. GSNO is an intracellular NO reservoir. It is also a vehicle of NO throughout the cell and organs, spreading NO biological function. GSNO is the largest low-molecular-mass S-nitrosothiol (SNO) in plant cells ( Corpas et al., 2013 ). GSNO metabolism and its reaction with other molecules involve S-nitrosylation and S-transnitrosation which consist of the binding of a NO molecule to a cysteine residue in proteins. Thioredoxin produces protein denitrosylation ( Correa-Aragunde et al., 2013 ). GSNO could be decomposed by the GSNO reductase (GSNOR) to GSSG which, in turn, is reduced to GSH by glutathione reductase (GR).

Glutathione also participates in the GSH/ASC cycle, a series of enzymatic reactions that degrade H 2 O 2 . APX degrades H 2 O 2 using ASC, the other major antioxidant in plants, as cofactor. The oxidized ASC is reduced by monodehydroascorbate reductase (MDHAR) in an NAD(P)H-dependent manner and by dehydroascorbate reductase (DHAR) employing GSH as electron donor. The resulting GSSG is reduced in turn to GSH by GR ( Foyer and Noctor, 2011 ).

Different Effects of NO in the Regulation of Antioxidant Enzymes

The application of NO donors alleviates oxidative stress in plants challenged to abiotic and/or biotic stresses ( Laxalt et al., 1997 ; Beligni and Lamattina, 1999b , 2002 ; Shi et al., 2007 ; Xue et al., 2007 ; Leitner et al., 2009 ).

Besides the direct ROS-scavenging activity of NO, its beneficial effect is exerted by the regulation of the antioxidant enzymes activity that controls toxic levels of ROS and RNS ( Uchida et al., 2002 ; Shi et al., 2005 ; Song et al., 2006 ; Romero-Puertas et al., 2007 ; Bai et al., 2011 ). NO can modulate cell redox balance in plants through the regulation of gene expression, posttranslational modification or by its binding to the heme prosthetic group of some antioxidant enzymes.

SOD catalyzes the dismutation of stress-generated O 2 •– in one of two less harmful species: either molecular oxygen (O 2 ) or hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ). APX and CAT are the most important enzymes degrading H 2 O 2 in plants. They transform H 2 O 2 to H 2 O and O 2 . APX isoforms are primarily found in the cytosol and chloroplasts, while the CAT isoforms are found in peroxisomes. APX has strong affinity for H 2 O 2 and uses ASC as an electron donor. In contrast, CAT removes H 2 O 2 generated in the peroxisomal respiratory pathway without the need to reduce power. Even though CAT affinity for H 2 O 2 is low, its elevated rate of reaction offers an effective way to detoxify H 2 O 2 inside the cell. PRX may reduce both hydroperoxide and peroxynitrite.

Many reports on different plant species demonstrate that NO induces the transcription and activity of antioxidative enzymes in response to oxidative stress. The tolerance to drought and salt-induced oxidative stress in tobacco is related to the ABA-triggered production of H 2 O 2 and NO. In turn, they induce transcripts and activities of SOD, CAT, APX, and GR ( Zhang et al., 2009 ). UV-B-produced oxidative stress in Glycine max was alleviated by NO donors, which induced transcription and activities of SOD, CAT, and APX ( Santa-Cruz et al., 2014 ). Furthermore, in bean leaves, SOD, CAT, and APX activities are increased by NO donors, and protected from the oxidative stress generated by UV-B irradiation ( Shi et al., 2005 ). Drought tolerance in bermudagrass is improved by ABA-dependent SOD and CAT activities. This effect is regulated by H 2 O 2 and NO, NO acting downstream H 2 O 2 ( Lu et al., 2009 ).

Several antioxidant enzymes have been identified as target of S-nitrosylation, resulting in a change of their biological activity ( Romero-Puertas et al., 2008 ; Bai et al., 2011 ; Fares et al., 2011 ). For instance, NO reinforces recalcitrant seed desiccation tolerance in Antiaris toxicaria by activating the ascorbate-glutathione cycle through S-nitrosylation to control H 2 O 2 accumulation. Desiccation treatment reduced the level of S-nitrosylated APX, GR, and DHAR proteins. Instead, NO gas exposure activated them by S-nitrosylation ( Bai et al., 2011 ). Furthermore, APX was S-nitrosylated at Cys32 during saline stress and biotic stress, enhancing its enzymatic activity ( Begara-Morales et al., 2014 ; Yang et al., 2015 ). In addition, auxin-induced denitrosylation of cytosolic APX provoked inhibition of its activity, followed by an increase of H 2 O 2 concentration and the consequent lateral root formation in Arabidopsis ( Correa-Aragunde et al., 2013 ). Moreover, an inhibitory impact of S-nitrosylation on APX activity was also reported during programmed cell death in Arabidopsis ( de Pinto et al., 2013 ). CAT was identified to be S-nitrosylated in a proteomic study of isolated peroxisomes ( Ortega-Galisteo et al., 2012 ). A decrease of S-nitrosylated CAT under Cd treatment was reported. In addition, in vitro experiments demonstrated a reversible inhibitory effect of APX and CAT activities by NO binding to the Fe of the heme cofactor ( Brown, 1995 ; Clark et al., 2000 ). In addition, NOXs have been involved in plant defense, development, hormone biosynthesis and signaling ( Marino et al., 2012 ). Whereas S-nitrosylation did not affect SOD activities, nitration inhibited Mn-SOD1, Fe-SOD3, and CuZn-SOD3 activity to different degrees ( Holzmeister et al., 2015 ). SOD isoforms could also regulate endogenous NO availability by competing for the common substrate, O 2 •– , and it was demonstrated that bovine SOD may release NO from GSNO ( Singh et al., 1999 ). When GSNO is decomposed by GSNOR, it produces GSSG. GSNOR is also regulated by NO. Frungillo et al. (2014) demonstrated that NO-derived from nitrate assimilation in Arabidopsis inhibited GSNOR1 by S-nitrosylation, preventing GSNO degradation. They proposed that (S)NO controls its own generation and scavenging by modulating nitrate assimilation and GSNOR1 activity. It was also shown that chilling treatment in poplar increased S-nitrosylation of NR, along with a significant decrease of its activity ( Cheng et al., 2015 ).

The dual activity of Prx, suggests a role for this enzyme both in ROS and RNS regulation. S-nitrosylation of Arabidopsis PrxIIE inhibits its peroxynitrite activity, increasing peroxynitrite-mediated tyrosine nitration ( Romero-Puertas et al., 2007 ). Pea mitochondrial PrxIIF was S-nitrosylated under salt stress, and its peroxidase activity was reduced by 5 mM GSNO ( Camejo et al., 2013 ).

An interesting study demonstrated that NO controls hypersensitive response (HR) through S-nitrosylation of NOX, inhibiting ROS synthesis. This triggers a feedback loop limiting HR ( Yun et al., 2011 ).

Other proteins related to abiotic stress response are regulated by S-nitrosylation (For a review see Fancy et al., 2017 ).

Figure 3 is a simplified diagram that illustrates the main oxidative and nitrosative effects that modulate the activities of key cell components, thus maintaining cell redox balance. Note the feedback and positive-negative regulatory processes occurring in the main pathways. They involve posttranslational modifications that activate and inhibit the components involved in cell antioxidant system.

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FIGURE 3. Molecules and mechanisms involved in NO-mediated redox balance. H 2 O 2 is generated mainly by NOX and SOD as a response to (a)biotic stress. APX and CAT are the main H 2 O 2 -degrading enzymes. NO is increased by H 2 O 2 through the induction of NR/NOS-like activities, and may scavenge ROS or induce both the transcription and activity of SOD, CAT, and APX. In parallel, NO is combined with GSH to form nitrosoglutathione GSNO. GSNO regulates many enzymatic activities by the posttranslational modification of cysteine residues through S-Nitrosylation. NOX and CAT activities are inhibited by S-nitrosylation, whereas APX is either activated or inhibited by S-nitrosylation. NO also inhibits APX by binding to heme group. GSNO is degraded by GSNOR, which could be inhibited by H 2 O 2 and S-nitrosylation.NR could be inhibited by S-nitrosylation. GR reduces GSSG to GSH, and it is activated by S-nitrosylation. Ascorbate (ASC) is a cofactor of APX. Reduced ASC is generated by MDHAR and DHAR, using GSH as electron donor. Both enzymes are inhibited by S-nitrosylation. Reactive Nitrogen Species (RNS) may be originated by NO and O 2 •– reaction. SOD regulate RNS dismutating O 2 •– . Peroxiredoxins (Prx) reduce both ROS AND RNS. RNS are degraded by PrxIIe, and H 2 O 2 by PrxIIF. Both enzymes are inhibited by S-nitrosylation. Red lines: H 2 O 2 -regulated reactions. Purple lines: NO-regulated reactions. Green lines: GSNO-regulated reactions.

Conclusions and Perspectives

The accelerating rate of climate change, together with habitat fragmentation caused by human activity, are part of the selective pressures building a new Earth’s landscape.

Climate change is a multidimensional and simultaneous variation in duration, frequency and intensity of parameters like temperature and precipitation, altering the seasons and life on the Earth. In this scenario, plant species with increased adaptive plasticity will be better equipped to tolerate changes in the frequency of extreme weather events. GHG are one of the forces driving climate change. However, CO 2 and NO may contribute to maintaining the cell redox homeostasis, regulating the amount of ROS, GSH, GSNO, and SNO.

In this manuscript, we summarize the available evidence supporting the presence of broad spectrum anti-stress molecules, as NO in plants, for coping with unprecedented changes in environmental conditions. Future research should focus in better understanding the influence of GHG on plant physiology.

Author Contributions

RC conceived the project and wrote the manuscript. MN drew figures and collaborated in writing the manuscript. NC-A and LL supervised and complemented the drafting. All the persons entitled to authorship have been named and have approved the final version of the submitted manuscript.

This work was supported by grants from the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas, the Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica, and the Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Argentina. NC-A, LL, and RC are permanent members of the Scientific Research career of CONICET. MN is doctoral fellow of the ANPCYT.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

The reviewer MCR-P and handling Editor declared their shared affiliation.

Acknowledgments

We thank ANPCYT for MN fellowship. We also thank Marta Terrazo for helping with the language revision of the manuscript.

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Keywords : climate change, greenhouse effect, oxidative stress, nitric oxide, plants

Citation: Cassia R, Nocioni M, Correa-Aragunde N and Lamattina L (2018) Climate Change and the Impact of Greenhouse Gasses: CO 2 and NO, Friends and Foes of Plant Oxidative Stress. Front. Plant Sci. 9:273. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2018.00273

Received: 18 November 2017; Accepted: 16 February 2018; Published: 01 March 2018.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2018 Cassia, Nocioni, Correa-Aragunde and Lamattina. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Raúl Cassia, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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greenhouse effect scientific paper

Roz Pidcock

Which of the many thousands of papers on climate change published each year in scientific journals are the most successful? Which ones have done the most to advance scientists’ understanding, alter the course of climate change research, or inspire future generations?

On Wednesday, Carbon Brief will reveal the results of our analysis into which scientific papers on the topic of climate change are the most “cited”. That means, how many times other scientists have mentioned them in their own published research. It’s a pretty good measure of how much impact a paper has had in the science world.

But there are other ways to measure influence. Before we reveal the figures on the most-cited research, Carbon Brief has asked climate experts what they think are the most influential papers.

We asked all the coordinating lead authors, lead authors and review editors on the last Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report to nominate three papers from any time in history. This is the exact question we posed:

What do you consider to be the three most influential papers in the field of climate change?

As you might expect from a broad mix of physical scientists, economists, social scientists and policy experts, the nominations spanned a range of topics and historical periods, capturing some of the great climate pioneers and the very latest climate economics research.

Here’s a link to our summary of who said what . But one paper clearly takes the top spot.

Winner: Manabe & Wetherald ( 1967 )

With eight nominations, a seminal paper by Syukuro Manabe and Richard. T. Wetherald published in the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences in 1967 tops the Carbon Brief poll as the IPCC scientists’ top choice for the most influential climate change paper of all time.

Entitled, “Thermal Equilibrium of the Atmosphere with a Given Distribution of Relative Humidity”, the work was the first to represent the fundamental elements of the Earth’s climate in a computer model, and to explore what doubling carbon dioxide (CO2) would do to global temperature.

Manabe & Wetherald (1967), Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences

Manabe & Wetherald (1967), Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences

The Manabe & Wetherald paper is considered by many as a pioneering effort in the field of climate modelling, one that effectively opened the door to projecting future climate change. And the value of climate sensitivity is something climate scientists are still grappling with today .

Prof Piers Forster , a physical climate scientist at Leeds University and lead author of the chapter on clouds and aerosols in working group one of the last IPCC report, tells Carbon Brief:

This was really the first physically sound climate model allowing accurate predictions of climate change.

The paper’s findings have stood the test of time amazingly well, Forster says.

Its results are still valid today. Often when I’ve think I’ve done a new bit of work, I found that it had already been included in this paper.

Prof Steve Sherwood , expert in atmospheric climate dynamics at the University of New South Wales and another lead author on the clouds and aerosols chapter, says it’s a tough choice, but Manabe & Wetherald (1967) gets his vote, too. Sherwood tells Carbon Brief:

[The paper was] the first proper computation of global warming and stratospheric cooling from enhanced greenhouse gas concentrations, including atmospheric emission and water-vapour feedback.

Prof Danny Harvey , professor of climate modelling at the University of Toronto and lead author on the buildings chapter in the IPCC’s working group three report on mitigation, emphasises the Manabe & Wetherald paper’s impact on future generations of scientists. He says:

[The paper was] the first to assess the magnitude of the water vapour feedback, and was frequently cited for a good 20 years after it was published.

Tomorrow, Carbon Brief will be publishing an interview with Syukuro Manabe, alongside a special summary by Prof John Mitchell , the Met Office Hadley Centre’s chief scientist from 2002 to 2008 and director of climate science from 2008 to 2010, on why the paper still holds such significance today.

Joint second: Keeling, C.D et al. ( 1976 )

Jumping forward a decade, a classic paper by Charles Keeling and colleagues in 1976 came in joint second place in the Carbon Brief survey.

Published in the journal Tellus under the title, “Atmospheric carbon dioxide variations at Mauna Loa observatory,” the paper documented for the first time the stark rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii.

A photocopy of Keeling et al., (1976) Source: University of California, Santa Cruz

A photocopy of Keeling et al., (1976) Source: University of California, Santa Cruz

Dr Jorge Carrasco , Antarctic climate change researcher at the University of Magallanes  in Chile and lead author on the cryosphere chapter in the last IPCC report, tells Carbon Brief why the research underpinning the “Keeling Curve’ was so important.

This paper revealed for the first time the observing increased of the atmospheric CO2 as the result of the combustion of carbon, petroleum and natural gas.

Prof David Stern , energy and environmental economist at the Australian National University and lead author on the Drivers, Trends and Mitigation chapter of the IPCC’s working group three report, also chooses the 1976 Keeling paper, though he notes:

This is a really tough question as there are so many dimensions to the climate problem – natural science, social science, policy etc.

With the Mauna Loa measurements continuing today , the so-called “Keeling curve” is the longest continuous record of carbon dioxide concentration in the world. Its historical significance and striking simplicity has made it one of the most iconic visualisations of climate change.

Source: US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

Source: US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

Also in joint second place: Held, I.M. & Soden, B.J. ( 2006 )

Fast forwarding a few decades, in joint second place comes a paper by Isaac Held and Brian Soden published in the journal Science in 2006.

The paper, “Robust Responses of the Hydrological Cycle to Global Warming”, identified how rainfall from one place to another would be affected by climate change. Prof Sherwood, who nominated this paper as well as the winning one from Manabe and Wetherald, tells Carbon Brief why it represented an important step forward. He says:

[This paper] advanced what is known as the “wet-get-wetter, dry-get-drier” paradigm for precipitation in global warming. This mantra has been widely misunderstood and misapplied, but was the first and perhaps still the only systematic conclusion about regional precipitation and global warming based on robust physical understanding of the atmosphere.

Extract from Held & Soden (2006), Journal of Climate

Held & Soden (2006), Journal of Climate

Honourable mentions

Rather than choosing a single paper, quite a few academics in our survey nominated one or more of the Working Group contributions to the last IPCC report. A couple even suggested the Fifth Assessment Report in its entirety, running to several thousands of pages. The original IPCC report , published in 1990, also got mentioned.

It was clear from the results that scientists tended to pick papers related to their own field. For example, Prof Ottmar Edenhofer , chief economist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and co-chair of the IPCC’s Working Group Three report on mitigation, selected four papers from the last 20 years on the economics of climate change costs versus risks, recent emissions trends, the technological feasibility of strong emissions reductions and the nature of international climate cooperation.

Taking a historical perspective, a few more of the early pioneers of climate science featured in our results, too. For example, Svante Arrhenius’ famous 1896 paper  on the Greenhouse Effect, entitled “On the influence of carbonic acid in the air upon the temperature of the ground”, received a couple of votes.

Prof Jonathan Wiener , environmental policy expert at Duke University in the US and lead author on the International Cooperation chapter in the IPCC’s working group three report, explains why this paper should be remembered as one of the most influential in climate policy. He says:

[This is the] classic paper showing that rising greenhouse gas concentrations lead to increasing global average surface temperature.

Svante Arrhenius (1896), Philosophical Magazine

Svante Arrhenius (1896), Philosophical Magazine

A few decades later, a paper by Guy Callendar in 1938  linked the increase in carbon dioxide concentration over the previous 50 years to rising temperatures. Entitled, “The artificial production of carbon dioxide and its influence on temperature,” the paper marked an important step forward in climate change research, says Andrew Solow , director of the Woods Hole Marine Policy centre and lead author on the detection and attribution of climate impacts chapter in the IPCC’s working group two report. He says:

There is earlier work on the greenhouse effect, but not (to my knowledge) on the connection between increasing levels of CO2 and temperature.

Though it may feature in the climate change literature hall of fame, this paper raises a question about how to define a paper’s influence, says Forster. Rather than being celebrated among his contemporaries, Callendar’s work achieved recognition a long time after it was published. Forster says:

I would loved to have chosen Callendar (1938) as the first attribution paper that changed the world. Unfortunately, the 1938 effort of Callendar was only really recognised afterwards as being a founding publication of the field … The same comment applies to earlier Arrhenius and Tyndall efforts. They were only influential in hindsight.

Guy Callendar and his 1938 paper in Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society

Guy Callendar and his 1938 paper in Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society

Other honourable mentions in the Carbon Brief survey of most influential climate papers go to Norman Phillips, whose 1956 paper described the first general circulation model, William Nordhaus’s 1991 paper on the economics of the greenhouse effect, and a paper by Camile Parmesan and Gary Yohe in 2003 , considered by many to provide the first formal attribution of climate change impacts on animal and plant species.

Finally, James Hansen’s 2012 paper , “Public perception of climate change and the new climate dice”, was important in highlighting the real-world impacts of climate change, says Prof Andy Challinor , expert in climate change impacts at the University of Leeds and lead author on the food security chapter in the working group two report. He says:

[It] helped with demonstrating the strong links between extreme events this century and climate change. Result: more clarity and less hedging.

Marc Levi , a political scientist at Columbia University and lead author on the IPCC’s human security chapter, makes a wider point, telling Carbon Brief:

The importance is in showing that climate change is observable in the present.

Indeed, attribution of extreme weather continues to be at the forefront of climate science, pushing scientists’ understanding of the climate system and modern technology to their limits.

Look out for more on the latest in attribution research as Carbon Brief reports on the Our Common Futures Under Climate Change conference taking place in Paris this week.

Pinning down which climate science papers most changed the world is difficult, and we suspect climate scientists could argue about this all day. But while the question elicits a range of very personal preferences, stories and characters, one paper has clearly stood the test of time and emerged as the popular choice among today’s climate experts – Manabe and Wetherald, 1967.

Main image: Satellite image of Hurricane Katrina.

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Climate change and its impact on biodiversity and human welfare

K. r. shivanna.

Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, Srirampura, Jakkur Post, Bengaluru, 560064 India

Climate change refers to the long-term changes in temperature and weather due to human activities. Increase in average global temperature and extreme and unpredictable weather are the most common manifestations of climate change. In recent years, it has acquired the importance of global emergency and affecting not only the wellbeing of humans but also the sustainability of other lifeforms. Enormous increase in the emission of greenhouse gases (CO 2 , methane and nitrous oxide) in recent decades largely due to burning of coal and fossil fuels, and deforestation are the main drivers of climate change. Marked increase in the frequency and intensity of natural disasters, rise in sea level, decrease in crop productivity and loss of biodiversity are the main consequences of climate change. Obvious mitigation measures include significant reduction in the emission of greenhouse gases and increase in the forest cover of the landmass. Conference of Parties (COP 21), held in Paris in 2015 adapted, as a legally binding treaty, to limit global warming to well below 2 °C, preferably to 1.5 °C by 2100, compared to pre-industrial levels. However, under the present emission scenario, the world is heading for a 3–4 °C warming by the end of the century. This was discussed further in COP 26 held in Glasgow in November 2021; many countries pledged to reach net zero carbon emission by 2050 and to end deforestation, essential requirements to keep 1.5 °C target. However, even with implementation of these pledges, the rise is expected to be around 2.4 °C. Additional measures are urgently needed to realize the goal of limiting temperature rise to 1.5 °C and to sustain biodiversity and human welfare.

Introduction

Climate change refers to long-term changes in local, global or regional temperature and weather due to human activities. For 1000s of years, the relationship between lifeforms and the weather have been in a delicate balance conducive for the existence of all lifeforms on this Planet. After the industrial revolution (1850) this balance is gradually changing and the change has become apparent from the middle of the twentieth century. Now it has become a major threat to the wellbeing of humans and the sustainability of biodiversity. An increase in average global temperature, and extreme and unpredictable weather are the most common manifestations of climate change. It has now acquired the importance of global emergency. According to the report of the latest Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (AR6 Climate Change 2021 ), human-induced climate change as is prevalent now is unprecedented at least in the last 2000 years and is intensifying in every region across the globe. In this review the drivers of climate change, its impact on human wellbeing and biodiversity, and mitigation measures being taken at global level are briefly discussed.

Drivers of climate change

Emission of green-house gases.

Steady increase in the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) due to human activities has been the primary driver for climate change. The principal greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide (76%), methane (16%), and to a limited extent nitrous oxide (2%). Until recent decades, the temperature of the atmosphere was maintained within a reasonable range as some of the sunlight that hits the earth was reflected back into the space while the rest becomes heat that keeps the earth and the atmosphere warm enough for the sustenance of life forms. Accumulation of greenhouse gases combine with water vapour to form a transparent layer in the atmosphere that traps infrared radiation (net heat energy) emitted from the Earth’s surface and reradiates it back to Earth’s surface, thus contributing to the increasing temperature (greenhouse effect). Methane is 25 times and nitrous oxide 300 times more potent than CO 2 in trapping heat. Until 2019, the US, UK, European Union, Canada, Australia, Japan and Russia were the major CO 2 producers and were responsible for 61% of world’s emissions. Now, China produces the maximum amount of CO 2 (27%) followed by USA (11%) and India (6.6%); on per capita basis, however, India stands ninth.

The emission of GHGs is largely due to the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas) for automobiles and industries which result in carbon emissions during their extraction as well as consumption. The amount of CO 2 in the atmosphere before the industrial revolution used to be around 280 ppm and now it has increased to 412 ppm (as of 2019). Increase in the atmospheric temperature also leads to an increase in the temperature of the ocean. The oceans play an important role in the global carbon cycle and remove about 25% of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activities. Further, some CO 2 dissolves in the ocean water releasing carbonic acid which increases the acidity of the sea water. Rising ocean temperatures and acidification not only reduce their capacity to act as carbon sinks but also affect ocean ecosystems and the populations that relay on them.

Increasing demand for meat and milk has led to a significant increase in the population of livestock and conversion of enormous amount of the land to pasture and farm land to raise livestock. Ruminant animals (largely cows, buffaloes and sheep) produce large amounts of methane when they digest food (through enteric fermentation by microbes), adding to the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (Sejiyan et al. 2016 ). To produce 1 kg of meat it requires 7 kg of grain and between 5000 and 20,000 L of water whereas to produce 1 kg of wheat it requires between 500 and 4000 L of water (Pimentel and Pimentel 2003 ). Anaerobic fermentation of livestock manure also produces methane. According to Patrick Brown, our animal farming industry needs to be changed; using readily available plant ingredients, the nutritional value of any type of meat can be matched with about one twentieth of the cost (See Leeming 2021 ).

The main natural source of nitrous oxide released to the atmosphere (60%) comes from the activity of microbes on nitrogen-based organic material from uncultivated soil and waste water. The remaining nitrous oxide comes from human activities, particularly agriculture. Application of nitrogenous fertilizers to crop plants is a routine practice to increase the yield; many of the farmers tend to apply more than the required amount. However, it results in nitrous oxide emissions from the soil through nitrification and denitrification processes by microbes. Both synthetic and organic fertilizers increase the amount of nitrogen available in the soil to microbial action leading to the release of nitrous oxide. Organic fertilizers, however, release nitrogen more slowly than synthetic ones so that most of it gets absorbed by the plants as they become available. Synthetic fertilizers release nitrogen rapidly which cannot be used by plants right away, thus making the excess nitrogen available to microbes to convert to nitrous oxide. Presently CO 2 concentration in the atmosphere is higher than at any time in at least 2 million years, and methane and nitrous oxide are higher than at any time in the last 800,000 years (AR6 Climate Change 2021 ).

Permafrost (permanently frozen soil), widespread in Arctic regions of Siberia, Canada, Greenland, Alaska, and Tibetan plateau contains large quantities of organic carbon in the top soil leftover from dead plants that could not be decomposed or rot away due to the cold. Global warming-induced thawing of permafrost facilitates decomposition of this material by microbes thus releasing additional amount of carbon dioxide and methane to the atmosphere.

Deforestation

Limited deforestation in early part of human civilization was the result of subsistence farming; farmers used to cut down trees to grow crops for consumption of their families and local population. In preindustrial period also, there was a balance between the amount of CO 2 emitted through various processes and the amount absorbed by the plants. Forests are the main sinks of atmospheric CO 2 . After the industrial revolution, the trend began to change; increasing proportion of deforestation is being driven by the demands of urbanization, industrial activities and large-scale agriculture. A new satellite map has indicated that field crops have been extended to one million additional km 2 of land over the last two decades and about half of this newly extended land has replaced forests and other ecosystems (Potapov et al. 2021 ).

In recent decades the demands on forest to grow plantation crops such as oil palm, coffee, tea and rubber, and for cattle ranching and mining have increased enormously thus reducing the forest cover. According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), over 43 million hectares of forest was lost between 2004 and 2017 out of 377 million hectares monitored around the world (Pacheco et al. 2021 ). Amazon Rain Forest is the largest tropical rain forest of the world and covers over 5 million km 2 . It is undergoing extensive degradation and has reached its highest point in recent years. According to National Geographic, about 17% of Amazon rain forest has been destroyed over the past 50 years and is increasing in recent years; during the last 1 year it has lost over 10,000 km 2 . In most of the countries the forest cover is less than 33%, considered necessary. For example, India’s forest and tree cover is only about 24.56% of the geographical area (Indian State Forest Report 2019 ).

Impacts of climate change

Increase in atmospheric temperature has serious consequences on biodiversity and ecosystems, and human wellbeing. The most important evidences of climate change is the long term data available on the CO 2 levels, global temperature and weather patterns. The impacts of climate change in the coming decades are based on published models on the basis of the analysis of the available data. Comparison of the performance of climate models published between 1970 and 2007 in projecting global mean surface temperature and associated changes with actual observations have shown that the models were consistent in predicting global warming in the years after publication (Hausfather et al. 2019 ). This correlation between predicted models and actual data indicates that the models are indeed reliable in accurately predicting the global warming and its impacts on weather pattern in the coming decades and their consequences on biodiversity and human welfare.

Weather pattern and natural disasters

One of the obvious changes observed in recent years is the extreme and unpredictable weather, and an increase in the frequency and intensity of natural disasters. Brazil’s south central region saw one of the worst droughts in 2021with the result many major reservoirs reached < 20% capacity, seriously affecting farming and energy generation (Getirana et al. 2021 ). In earlier decades, it was possible to predict with reasonable certainty annual weather pattern including the beginning and ending of monsoon rains; farmers could plan sowing periods of their crops in synchrony with the prevailing weather. Now the weather pattern is changing almost every year and the farmers are suffering huge losses. Similarly the extent of annual rainfall and the locations associated with heavy and scanty rainfall are no more predictable with certainty. Many areas which were associated with scanty rainfall have started getting much heavier rains and the extent of rainfall is getting reduced in areas traditionally associated with heavy rainfall. Similarly the period and the extent of snowfall in temperate regions have also become highly variable.

Increase in the frequency and intensity of natural disasters such as floods and droughts, cyclones, hurricanes and typhoons, and wildfires have become very obvious. Top five countries affected by climate change in 2021 include Japan, Philippines, Germany, Madagascar and India. Apart from causing death of a large number of humans and other animals, economic losses suffered by both urban and rural populations have been enormous. Deadly floods and landslides during 2020 forced about 12 million people leave their homes in India, Nepal and Bangladesh. According to World Meteorological Organization’s comprehensive report published in August 2021 (WMO-No.1267), climate change related disasters have increased by a factor of five over the last 50 years; however, the number of deaths and economic losses were reduced to 2 million and US$ 3.64 trillion respectively, due to improved warning and disaster management. More than 91% of these deaths happened in developing countries. Largest human losses were brought about by droughts, storms, floods and extreme temperatures. The report highlights that the number of weather, climate and water-extremes will become more frequent and severe as a result of climate change.

Global warming enhances the drying of organic matter in forests, thus increasing the risks of wildfires. Wildfires have become very common in recent years, particularly is some countries such as Western United States, Southern Europe and Australia, and are becoming more frequent and widespread. They have become frequent in India also and a large number of them have been recorded in several states. According to European Space Agency, fire affected an estimated four million km 2 of Earth’s land each year. Wildfires also release large amounts of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and fine particulate matter into the atmosphere causing air pollution and consequent health problems. In 2021, wildfires around the world, emitted 1.76 billion tonnes of carbon (European Union’s Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service). In Australia, more than a billion native animals reported to have been killed during 2020 fires, and some species and ecosystems may never recover (OXFAM International 2021 ).

Sea level rise

Global warming is causing mean sea level to rise in two ways. On one hand, the melting of the glaciers, the polar ice cap and the Atlantic ice shelf are adding water to the ocean and on the other hand the volume of the ocean is expanding as the water warms. Incomplete combustion of fossil fuels, biofuels and biomass releases tiny particles of carbon (< 2.5 µm), referred to as black carbon. While suspended in the air (before they settle down on earth’s surface) black carbon particles absorb sun’s heat 1000s of times more effectively than CO 2 thus contributing to global warming. When black particles get deposited over snow, glaciers or ice caps, they enhance their melting further adding to the rise in sea level. Global mean sea level has risen faster since 1900 than over any preceding century in at least the last 3000 years. Between 2006 and 2016, the rate of sea-level rise was 2.5 times faster than it was for almost the whole of the twentieth century (OXFAM International 2021 ). Precise data gathered from satellite radar measurements reveal an accelerating rise of 7.5 cm from 1993 to 2017, an average of 31 mm per decade (WCRP Global Sea Level Budget Group 2018 ).

Snow accounts for almost all current precipitation in the Arctic region. However, it continues to warm four times faster than the rest of the world as the melting ice uncovers darker land or ocean beneath, which absorbs more sunlight causing more heating. The latest projections indicate more rapid warming and sea ice loss in the Arctic region by the end of the century than predicted in previous projections (McCrystall et al. 2021 ). It also indicates that the transition from snow to rain-dominated Arctic in the summer and autumn is likely to occur decades earlier than estimated. In fact this transition has already begun; rain fell at Greenland’s highest summit (3216 m) on 14 August 2021 for several hours for the first time on record and air temperature remained above freezing for about 9 h (National Snow and Ice Sheet Centre Today, August 18, 2021).

In the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union (13 December 2021) researchers warned that rapid melting and deterioration of one of western Antarctica’s biggest glaciers, roughly the size of Florida, Thwaites (often called as Doomsday Glacier), could lead to ice shelf’s complete collapse in just a few years. It holds enough water to raise sea level over 65 cm. Thwaites glacier is holding the entire West Antarctic ice sheet and is being undermined from underneath by warm water linked to the climate change. Melting of Thwaites could eventually lead to the loss of the entire West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which locks up 3.3 m of global sea level rise. Such doomsday may be coming sooner than expected (see Voosen 2021 ). If this happens, its consequences on human tragedy and biodiversity loss are beyond imagination.

The Himalayan mountain range is considered to hold the world’s third largest amount of glacier ice after Arctic and Antarctic regions. It is considered as Asian water tower (Immerzeel et al. 2020 ); the meltwater from the Himalayan glaciers provide the source of fresh water to nearly 2 billion people living along the mountain valleys and lowlands around the Himalayas. These glaciers are melting at unprecedented rates. Recently King et al. ( 2021 ) studied 79 glaciers close to Mt. Everest by analysing mass-change measurements from satellite archives and reported that the rate of ice loss from glaciers consistently increased since the early 1960s. This loss is likely to increase in the coming years due to further warming. In another study, a tenfold acceleration in ice loss was observed across the Himalayas than the average rate in recent decades over the past centuries (Lee et al. 2021 ). Melting of glaciers also results in drying up of perennial rivers in summer leading to the water scarcity for billions of humans and animals, and food and energy production downstream. See level rise and melting of glaciers feeding the rivers could lead to migration of huge population, creating additional problems. Even when the increase in global temperature rise is limited to 1.5 °C (discussed later), it generates a global sea-level rise between 1.7 and 3.2 feet by 2100. If it increases to 2 °C, the result could be more catastrophic leading to the submergence of a large number of islands, and flooding and submergence of vast coastal areas, saltwater intrusion into surface waters and groundwater, and increased soil erosion. A number of islands of Maldives for example, would get submerged as 80% of its land area is located less than one meter above the sea level. The biodiversity in such islands and coastal areas becomes extinct. China, Vietnam, Fiji, Japan, Indonesia, India and Bangladesh are considered to be the most at risk. Sundarbans National Park (UNESCO world heritage Site), the world’s largest Mangrove Forest spread over 140,000 hectares across India and Bangladesh, is the habitat for Royal Bengal Tiger and several other animal species. The area has already lost 12% of its shoreline in the last four decades by rising see level; it is likely to be completely submerged. Jakarta in Indonesia is the fastest sinking city in the world; the city has already sunk 2.5 m in the last 10 years and by 2050, most of it would be submerged. In Europe also, about three quarters of all cities will be affected by rising sea levels, especially in the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, Greece and Italy. The entire city of Venice may get submerged (Anonymous 2018 ). In USA, New York City and Miami would be particularly vulnerable.

Crop productivity and human health

Many studies have indicated that climate change is driving increasing losses in crop productivity (Zhu et al. 2021 ). The models on global yield loss for wheat, maize and rice indicate an increase in yield losses by 10 to 25% per degree Celsius warming (Deutsch et al. 2018 ). Bras et al. ( 2021 ) reported that heatwave and drought roughly tripled crop losses over the last 50 years, from − 2.2% (1964–1990) to − 7.3% (1991–2015). Overall, the loss in crop production from climate-driven abiotic stresses may exceed US$ 170 billion year –1  and represents a major threat to global food security (Razaaq et al. 2021 ). Analysis of annual field trials of common wheat in California from 1985 to 2019 (35 years), during which the global atmospheric CO 2  concentration increased by 19%, revealed that the yield declined by 13% (Bloom and Plant 2021 ). Apart from crop yield, climate change is reported to result in the decline of nutritional value of food grains (Jagermeyr et al. 2021 ). For example, rising atmospheric CO 2 concentration reduces the amounts of proteins, minerals and vitamins in rice (Zhu et al. 2018 ). This may be true in other cereal crops also. As rice supplies 25% of all global calories, this would greatly affect the food and nutritional security of predominantly rice growing countries. Climate change would also increase the prevalence of insect pests adding to the yield loss of crops. The prevailing floods and droughts also affect food production significantly. Global warming also affects crop productivity through its impact on pollinators. Insect pollinators contribute to crop production in 75% of the leading food crops (Rader et al. 2013 ). Climate change contributes significantly to the decline in density and diversity of pollinators (Shivanna 2020 ; Shivanna et al. 2020 ). Under high as well as low temperatures, bees spend less time in foraging (Heinrich 1979 ) adding additional constraints to pollination efficiency of crop species.

The IPCC Third Assessment Report (Climate change 2001: The scientific basis – IPCC) concluded that the poorest countries would be hardest hit with reductions in crop yields in most tropical and sub-tropical regions due to increased temperature, decreased water availability and new or changed insect pest incidence. Rising ocean temperatures and ocean acidification affect marine ecosystems. Loss of fish habitats is modifying the distribution and productivity of both marine and freshwater species thus affecting the sustainability of fisheries and populations dependent on them (Salvatteci 2022 ).

Air pollution is considered as the major environmental risk of climate change due to its impact on public health causing increasing morbidity and mortality (Manisalidis 2020 ). Particulate matter, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, and sulphur dioxide are the major air pollutants. They cause respiratory problems such as asthma and bronchiolitis and lung cancer. Recent studies have indicated that exposure to air pollution is linked to methylation of immunoregulatory genes, altered immune cell profiles and increased blood pressure in children (Prunicki et al. 2021 ). In another study wildfire smoke has been reported to be more harmful to humans than automobiles emissions (Aquilera et al. 2021 ). Stubble burning (intentional incineration of stubbles by farmers after crop harvest) has been a common practice in some parts of South Asia particularly in India; it releases large amount of toxic gases such as carbon monoxide and methane and causes serious damage to the environment and health (Abdurrahman et al. 2020 ). It also affects soil fertility by destroying the nutrients and microbes of the soil. Attempts are being made to use alternative methods to prevent this practice.

A number of diseases such as zika fever, dengue and chikungunya are transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes and are now largely restricted to the monsoon season. Global warming facilitates their spread in time and space thus exposing new populations and regions for extended period to these diseases. Lyme disease caused by a bacterium is transmitted through the bite of the infected blacklegged ticks. It is one of the most common disease in the US. The cases of Lyme disease have tripled in the past two decades. Recent studies have suggested that variable winter conditions due to climate change could increase tick’s activity thus increasing the infections (see Pennisi 2022 ).

Biodiversity

Biodiversity and associated ecoservices are the basic requirements for human livelihood and for maintenance of ecological balance in Nature. Documentation of biodiversity, and its accelerating loss and urgent need for its conservation have become the main concern for humanity since several decades (Wilson and Peter 1988 ; Wilson 2016 ; Heywood 2017 ; IPBES 2019 ; Genes and Dirzo 2021 ; Shivanna and Sanjappa 2021 ). It is difficult to analyse the loss of biodiversity exclusively due to climate change as other human-induced environmental changes such as habitat loss and degradation, overexploitation of bioresources and introduction of alien species also interact with climate change and affect biodiversity and ecosystems. In recent decades there has been a massive loss of biodiversity leading to initiation of the sixth mass extinction crisis due to human-induced environmental changes. These details are not discussed here; they are dealt in detail in many other reviews (Leech and Crick 2007 ; Sodhi and Ehrlich 2010 ; Lenzen et al. 2012 ; Dirzo and Raven 2003 ; Raven 2020 ; Ceballos et al. 2015 ; Beckman et al. 2020 ; Shivanna 2020 ; Negrutiu et al. 2020 ; Soroye et al. 2020 ; Wagner 2020 ,  2021 ; Anonymous 2021 ; Zattara and Aizen 2021 ).

Terrestrial species

There are several effects on biodiversity caused largely by climate change. Maxwell et al. ( 2019 ) reviewed 519 studies on ecological responses to extreme climate events (cyclones, droughts, floods, cold waves and heat waves) between 1941 and 2015 covering amphibians, birds, fish, invertebrates, mammals, reptiles and plants. Negative ecological responses have been reported for 57% of all documented groups including 31 cases of local extirpations and 25% of population decline.

Increase in temperature impacts two aspects of growth and development in plants and animals. One of them is a shift in distributional range of species and the other is the shift in phenological events. Plant and animal species have adapted to their native habitat over 1000s of years. As the temperature gets warmer in their native habitat, species tend to move to higher altitudes and towards the poles in search of suitable temperature and other environmental conditions. There are a number of reports on climate change-induced shifts in the distributional range of both plant and animal species (Grabherr et al. 1994 ; Cleland et al. 2007 ; Parmesan and Yohe 2003 ; Beckage et al. 2008 ; Pimm 2009 ; Miller-Rushing et al. 2010 ; Lovejoy and Hannah 2005 ; Lobell et al. 2011 ). Many species may not be able to keep pace with the changing weather conditions and thus lag behind leading to their eventual extinction. Long-term observations extending for over 100 years have shown that many species of bumblebees in North-America and Europe are not keeping up with the changing climate and are disappearing from the southern portions of their range (Kerr et al. 2015 ). Most of the flowering plants depend on animals for seed dispersal (Beckman et al. 2020 ). Defaunation induced by climate change and other environmental disturbances has reduced long-distance seed dispersal. Prediction of dispersal function for fleshly-fruited species has already reduced the capacity of plants to track climate change by 60%, thus severely affecting their range shifts (Fricke et al. 2022 ).

Climate change induced shifts in species would threaten their sustenance even in protected areas as they hold a large number of species with small distributional range (Velasquez-Tibata et al. 2013 ). Pautasso ( 2012 ) has highlighted the sensitivity of European birds to the impacts of climate change in their phenology (breeding time), migration patterns, species distribution and abundance. Metasequoia glyptostroboides is one of the critically endangered species with extremely small populations distributed in South-Central China. Zhao et al. ( 2020 ) analysed detailed meteorological and phenological data from 1960 to 2016 and confirmed that climate warming has altered the phenology and compressed the climatically suitable habitat of this species. Their studies revealed that the temperature during the last 57 years has increased significantly with the expansion of the length of growing season of this species. Climatically suitable area of the species has contracted at the rate of 370.8 km 2 per decade and the lower and upper elevation limits shrunk by 27 m over the last 57 years.

The other impact of climate change on plant and animal species has been in their phenological shift. Phenology is the timing of recurring seasonal events; it is a sort of Nature’s calendar for plants and animals. In flowering plants, various reproductive events such as the timing of flowering, fruiting, their intensity, and longevity are important phenological events, and in animals some of the phenological events include building of nests in birds, migration of animal species, timing of egg laying and development of the larva, pupa and adult in insects. Phenological events of both plants and animals are generally fixed in specific time of the year as they are based on environmental cues such as temperature, light, precipitation and snow melt. Phenological timings of species are the results of adaptations over 100 s of years to the prevailing environment. Wherever there is a mutualism between plants and animals, there is a synchrony between the two partners. For example in flowering plants, flowering is associated with the availability of pollinators and fruiting is associated with the availability of seed dispersers and optimal conditions for seed germination and seedling establishment. In animals also, phenological events are adapted to suit normal growth and reproduction. In temperate regions, melting of ice initiates leafing in plants; this is followed by the flowering in the spring. Similarly, warming of the climate before the spring induces hatching of the hibernating insects which feed on newly developed foliage. Insects emerge and ready to pollinate the flowers by the time the plants bloom.

The dates of celebration of the cherry blossom festival, an important cultural event in Japan that coincides with the peak of flowering period of this species and for which > 1000 years of historical records are available, has shown advances in the dates of the festival in recent decades (Primack et al. 2009 ). The records between 1971 and 2000 showed that the trees flowered an average of 7 days earlier than all the earlier years (Allen et al. 2013 ). These advances were correlated with increasing temperature over the years. Spring temperatures in the Red River valley, North Dakota, USA have extended the period of the growing season of plants significantly over the years. Flowering times, for which data are available from1910 to1961, have been shown to be sensitive to at least one variable related to temperature or precipitation for 75% of the 178 species investigated (Dunnell and Traverse 2011 ). The first flowering time has been significantly shifted earlier or later over the last 4 years of their study in 5–15% of the observed species relative to the previous century. Rhododendron arboretum , one of the central Himalayan tree species, flowers from early February to mid-March. Generalized additive model using real-time field observations (2009–2011) and herbarium records (1893–2003) indicated 88–97 days of early flowering in this species over the last 100 years (Gaira et al. 2014 ). This early flowering was correlated with an increase in the temperature.

One of the consequences of a shift in the distributional range of species and phenological timings is the possible uncoupling of synchronization between the time of flowering of plant species and availability of its pollinators (see Gerard et al. 2020 ). When a plant species migrates, its pollinator may not be able to migrate; similarly when a pollinator migrates, the plant species on which it depends for sustenance may not migrate. Memmott et al. ( 2007 ) explored potential disruption of pollination services due to climate change using a network of 1420 pollinators and 429 plant species by simulating consequences of phenological shifts that can be expected with doubling of atmospheric CO 2 . They reported phenological shifts which reduced available floral resources to 17–50% of all pollinator species. A long-term study since the mid-1970s in the Mediterranean Basin has indicated that unlike the synchrony present in the earlier decades between the flowering of plant species and their pollinators, insect phenoevents during the last decade showed a steeper advance than those of plants (Gordo and Sanz 2005 ). Similar asynchrony has been reported between the flowering of Lathyrus and one of its pollinators, Hoplitis fulgida (Forrest and Thomson 2011 ). Asynchrony between flowering and appearance of pollinator has also been reported in a few other cases (Kudo and Ida 2013 ; Kudo 2014 ). Such asynchrony could affect the sustenance of plant and/or pollinator species in the new environment.

Marine species

Amongst the marine species, corals are the most affected groups due to the rise in temperature and acidity of oceans. Corals live in a symbiotic relationship with algae which provide colour and photosynthates to the corals. Corals are extremely sensitive to heat and acidity; even an increase of 2–3°F of ocean water above normal results in expulsion of the symbiotic algae from their tissues leading to their bleaching (Hoegh-Guldberg et al. 2017 ). When this bleached condition continues for several weeks, corals die. Nearly one-third of the Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest coral reef system that sustains huge Australian tourism industry, has died as a result of global warming (Hughes et al. 2018 ). According to the experts the reef will be unrecognizable in another 50 years if greenhouse gas emissions continue at the current rate.

According to UNESCO, coral reefs in all 29 reef-containing World Heritage sites would cease to exist as functioning ecosystems by the end of this century if greenhouse gas emissions continue to be emitted at the present rate (Elena et al. 2020 ). Recent assessment of the risk of ecosystem collapse to coral reefs of the Western Indian Ocean, covering about 5% of the global total, range from critically endangered to vulnerable (Obura et al. 2021 ). Coral reefs provide suitable habitat for thousands of other species, including sharks, turtles and whales. If corals die, the whole ecosystem will get disrupted.

Melting of ice in Arctic region due to global warming is threatening the survival of native animals such as polar bear, Arctic fox and Arctic wolf. Rising of sea level also leads to the extinction of a large number of endangered and endemic plant and animal species in submerged coastal areas and islands. Over 180,000 islands around the globe contain 20% of the world’s biodiversity. Bellard et al. ( 2013 ) assessed consequences of sea level rise of 1–6 m for 10 insular biodiversity hotspots and their endemic species at the risk of potential extinction. Their study revealed that 6 to19% of the 4447 islands would be entirely submerged depending on the rise of sea level; three of them, the Caribbean islands, the Philippines and Sundaland, displayed the most significant hotspots representing a potential threat for 300 endemic species. According to the Centre for Biological Diversity ( 2013 ) 233 federally protected threatened and endangered species in 23 coastal states are threatened if rising sea is unchecked. Recently more than 100 Aquatic Science Societies representing over 80,000 scientists from seven continents sounded climate alarm (Bonar 2021 ). They have highlighted the effects of climate change on marine and aquatic ecosystems and have called on the world leaders and public to undertake mitigation measures to protect and sustain aquatic systems and theirs services.

Mitigation measures

The principal mitigation measures against climate change are obvious; they include significant reduction in greenhouse gas emission, prevention of deforestation and increase in the forest cover. To reduce greenhouse gas emission, use of coal and fossil fuels needs to be reduced markedly. As climate change is a global challenge, local solutions confined to one or a few countries do not work; we need global efforts. Many attempts are being made to achieve these objectives at the global level since many decades. Mitigation measures are largely at the level of diplomatic negotiations involving states and international organizations, Governments and some nongovernmental organizations. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1988. Its mandate was to provide political leaders with periodic scientific assessments concerning climate change, its implications and risks, and also to put forward adaptation and mitigation strategies. In 1992 more than 1700 World scientists, including the majority of living Nobel laureates gave the first Warning to Humanity about climate change and associated problems. They expressed concern about potential damage to the Planet Earth by human-induced environmental changes such as climate change, continued human population growth, forest loss, biodiversity loss and ozone depletion. Conference of Parties (COP) of the UN Convention on Climate Change was established in 1992 under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to discuss global response to climate change. Its first meeting (COP 1) was held in Berlin in March 1995 and is being held every year since then. The Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC, released in November 2014, projected an increase in the mean global temperature of 3.7 to 4.8 °C by 2100, relative to preindustrial levels (1850), in the absence of new policies to mitigate climate change; it highlighted that such an increase would have serious consequences. This prediction compelled the participating countries at the COP 21 held in Paris in December 2015 to negotiate effective ways and means of reducing carbon emissions. In this meeting the goal to limit global warming to well below 2 °C, preferably to 1.5 °C, compared to preindustrial levels was adapted by 196 participating countries as a legally binding treaty on climate change. It also mandated review of progress every 5 years and the development of a fund containing $100 billion by 2020, which would be replenished annually, to help developing countries to adopt non-greenhouse-gas-producing technologies.

In 2017, after 25 years after the first warning, 15,354 world scientists from 184 countries gave ‘second warning to humanity’ (Ripple et al. 2017 ). They emphasized that with the exception of stabilizing the stratospheric ozone layer, humanity has failed to make sufficient progress in solving these environmental challenges, and alarmingly, most of them are getting far worse. Analysis of Warren et al. ( 2018 ) on a global scale on the effects of climate change on the distribution of insects, vertebrates and plants indicated that even with 2 °C temperature increase, approximately 18% of insects, 16% of plants and 8% of vertebrates species are projected to loose > 50% geographic range; this falls to 6% for insects, 8% for plants and 4% for vertebrates when temperature increase is reduced to 1.5 °C.

UN Report on climate change (prepared by > 90 authors from 40 countries after examining 6000 scientific publications) released in October 2018 in South Korea also gave serious warning to the world. Some of the salient features of this report were:

  • Overshooting 1.5 °C will be disastrous. It will have devastating effects on ecosystems, communities and economies. By 2040 there could be global food shortages, the inundation of coastal cities and a refugee crisis unlike the world has ever seen.
  • Even 1.5 °C warming would rise sea levels by 26–77 cm by 2100; 2 °C would add another 10 cm which would affect another 10 million people living in coastal regions.
  • Coral reefs are projected to decline 70–90% even at 1.5 °C. At 2 °C, 99% of the reefs would be ravaged.
  • Storms, floods, droughts and forest fires would increase in intensity and frequency.
  • The world has already warmed by about 1 °C since preindustrial times. We are currently heading for about 3–4 °C of warming by 2100.
  • Unless rapid and deep reductions in CO 2 and other greenhouse gas emissions occur in the coming decades, achieving the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement will be beyond reach.
  • To keep 1.5 °C target, coal’s share of global electricity generation must be cut from the present 37% to no more than 2% by 2050. Renewable power must be greatly expanded. Net CO 2  emissions must come down by 45% (from 2010 levels) by 2030 and reach net zero (emissions of greenhouse gases no more than the amount removed from the atmosphere) around 2050.

This report awakened the world Governments about the seriousness of the climate change. The COP 26 meeting which was to be held in 2020 had to be postponed due to Covid-19 pandemic. The first part of the sixth report of IPCC was released in August 2021 (AR6 Climate Change 2021 ), just before the postponed COP 26 meeting was to be held; it highlighted that the threshold warming of 1.5 °C (the target of keeping the warming by the end of the century) would reach in the next 20 years itself and if the present trends continue, it would reach 2.7 °C by the end of the century.

Under this predicted climate emergency (see Ripple et al. 2020 ), COP 26 meeting was held in Glasgow, Scotland between October 31 and November 12, 2021. Nearly 200 countries participated in this meeting. The main aim of the COP 26 was finalization of the rules and procedures for implementation of the Paris agreement to keep the temperature increase to 1.5 °C. A number of countries including USA and European Union pledged to reach net zero carbon emission by 2050. China pledged to reach net zero emissions by 2060 and India by 2070. India also committed to reduce the use of fossil fuels by 40% by 2030. More than 100 countries committed to reduce worldwide methane emissions by 30% (of 2020 levels) by 2030 and to end deforestation by 2030. The average atmospheric concentration of methane reached a record 1900 ppb in September 2021; it was 1638 ppb in 1983 (US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), highlighting the importance of acting on pledges made at the COP 26.

One of the limitations of COP meetings has been nonadherence of the commitment made by developed countries at Paris meeting to transfer US $100 billion annually to developing and poor countries to support climate mitigation and loss of damage, through 2025; only Germany, Norway and Sweden are paying their share. Several experts feel that the adoption of the Glasgow Climate Pact was weaker than expected. According to the assessment of Climate Action Tracker, a non-profit independent global analysis platform, emission reduction commitments by countries still lead to 2.4 °C warming by 2100. However, a positive outcome of the meeting was that it has kept alive the hopes of achieving the 1.5 °C goal by opening the options for further discussion in the coming COP meetings. Apart from implementation of mitigation pledges made by countries, it is also important to pay attention to climate adaptation since the negative effects of climate change will continue for decades or longer (AR6 Climate Change 2021 ). Investment in early warning is an important means of climate adaptation, which is lacking in many parts of Africa and Latin America.

Conclusions

Climate change has now become the fastest growing global threat to human welfare. The world has realized the responsibility of the present generation as it is considered to be the last generation capable of taking effective measures to reverse its impact. If it fails, human civilization is likely to be doomed beyond recovery. As emphasized by many organizations, the climate crisis is inherently unfair; poorer countries will suffer its consequences more than others. India is one amongst the nine countries identified to be seriously affected by climate change. According to a WHO analysis ( 2016 ) India could face more than 25% of all global climate-related deaths by 2050 due to decreasing food availability. China is expected to face the highest number of per capita food insecurity deaths. Bhutan, a small Himalayan kingdom with 60% forest cover, is the most net negative carbon emission country; its GHG emission is less than the amount removed from the atmosphere. Other countries should aim to emulate Bhutan as early as possible.

A number of other options have been suggested to trap atmospheric carbon dioxide (Climate change mitigation—Wikipedia). Carbon storage through sequestration of organic carbon by deep-rooted grasses has been one such approach (Fisher et al. 1994 ). Several studies from Africa have indicated that introduction of Brachiaria grasses in semi-arid tropics can help to increase not only carbon stock in the soil but also yield greater economic returns (Gichangi et al. 2017 ). Recently a new seed bank, ‘Future Seeds’ was dedicated at Palmira, Columbia to store world’s largest collection of beans, cassava, and tropical forage grasses for the use of breeders to create better performing and climate-resistant crops (Stokstad 2022 ). Brachiaria humidicola is one of the tropical forage grass stored in this seed bank for its potential benefit in carbon sequestration. Lavania and Lavania ( 2009 ) have suggested vetiver ( Vetiveria zizanioides ), a C 4 perennial grass, with massive fibrous root system that can grow up to 3 m into the soil in 1 year, as a potential species for this purpose. Vetiver is estimated to produce 20–30 tonnes of root dry matter per hectare annually and holds the potential of adding 1 kg atmospheric CO 2 annually to the soil carbon pool per m 2 surface area. Carbon dioxide capture and storage is another such potential approach. At present it is too expensive and this approach may have to wait until improvement of the technology, reduction in the cost and feasibility of transfer of the technology to developing countries (IPCC Special Report on carbon dioxide capture and storage 2005 ).

There has been some discussion on the role of climate change on speciation (Levin 2019 ; Gao et al. 2020 ). Some evolutionary biologists have observed that the rate of speciation has accelerated in the recent past due to climate change and would continue to increase in the coming decades (Thomas 2015 ; Levin 2019 ; Gao et al. 2020 ). They propose that auto- and allo-polyploidy are going to be the primary modes of speciation in the next 500 years (Levin 2019 , see also Gao 2019 , Villa et al. 2022 ). However, extinction of species imposed by climate change may excel positive impact on plant speciation via polyploidy (Gao et al. 2020 ). The question is will climate change induce higher level of polyploidy and other genetic changes in crop species also that would promote evolution of new genotypes to sustain productivity and quality of food grains? If so, it would ameliorate, to some extent, food and nutritional insecurity of humans especially in the developing world.

Effective implementation of the pledges made by different countries in COP 26 and actions to be taken in the coming COP meetings are going to be crucial and determine humanity’s success or failure in tackling climate change emergency. COP 26 climate pact to cut greenhouse gas emissions, end of deforestation and shift to sustainable transport is certainly more ambitious then earlier COPs. There are also many other positive signals for reducing fossil fuels. Scientists have started using more precise monitoring equipment to collect more reliable environmental data, and more options are being developed by researchers on renewable and alternate energy sources, and to capture carbon from industries or from the air (Chandler D, MIT News 24 Oct 2019, Swain F, BBC Future Planet, 12 March 2021). Scotland has become coal-free and Costa Rica has achieved 99% renewable energy. India has reduced the use of fossil fuel by 40% of it installed capacity, 8 years ahead of its commitment at the COP 26.

Further, people are becoming more conscious to reduce carbon emission by following climate-friendly technologies. Human sufferings associated with an increase in natural disasters throughout the world have focussed public attention on climate change as never before. They also realise the benefits of improved air quality by reducing consumption of coal and fossil fuels on health and ecosystems. The demand for electric vehicles is steadily growing. Reforestation is being carried out in a large scale in many countries. Recent studies across a range of tree plantations and native forests in 53 countries have revealed that carbon storage, soil erosion control, water conservation and biodiversity benefits are delivered better from native forests compared to monoculture tree plantations, although the latter yielded more wood (Hua et al. 2022 ). This has to be kept in mind in reforestation programmes. Hopefully the world will be able to realize the goal of limiting the temperature rise to 1.5 °C by the end of the century and humanity would learn to live in harmony with Nature.

Declarations

The author declares no conflict of interest.

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November 9, 2023

23 min read

The Woman Who Demonstrated the Greenhouse Effect

Eunice Newton Foote showed that carbon dioxide traps the heat of the sun in 1856, beating the so-called father of the greenhouse effect by at least three years. Why was she forgotten?

By Zoe Kurland , Katie Hafner , Elah Feder & The Lost Women of Science Initiative

A caricature illustration of a woman in profile looking at a scientific flask that's bubbling up to the sun

Paula Mangin

In 1856, decades before the term “greenhouse gas” was coined, Eunice Newton Foote demonstrated the greenhouse effect in her home laboratory. She placed a glass cylinder full of carbon dioxide in sunlight and found that it heated up much more than a cylinder of ordinary air. Her conclusion: more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere results in a warmer planet.

Several years later a Irish scientist named John Tyndall conducted a far more complicated experiment that demonstrated the same effect and revealed how it worked. Today Tyndall is widely known as the man who discovered the greenhouse gas effect. There’s even a crater on the moon named for him! Newton Foote, meanwhile, was lost to history—until an amateur historian stumbled on her story.

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[ New to this season of Lost Women of Science? Listen to the most recent episodes on  Flemmie Kittrell  and Rebecca Lee Crumpler . ]

Lost Women of Science is produced for the ear. Where possible, we recommend listening to the audio for the most accurate representation of what was said.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Zoe Kurland: About 12 years ago, Ray Sorenson was flipping through The Annual of Scientific Discovery of 1857. This is the kind of stuff Ray reads for fun, 19th Century science books and journals.

Ray Sorenson: You know, you buy a couple of those things, and you get hooked. I probably have a thousand publications that predate the Civil War. 

Zoe Kurland: The Annual of Scientific Discovery was kind of a yearbook of all the science happenings from the previous year. And as Ray was perusing this stimulating tome, as one does, one particular entry caught his attention. It was about experiments conducted by someone named Eunice Foote.

Ray Sorenson: Let’s see where do I have it? 

Zoe Kurland : He’s going to read us a few lines once he finds it.

Ray Sorenson: Ah, here it is. I think. I need my reading glasses. Hold on.

Zoe Kurland: So for context, what you’re about to hear is a write-up of a presentation of Eunice’s work that was given at a meeting in 1856. And Eunice didn’t get to read the paper herself at that meeting. A man actually read it for her. It was 1856, so you know.

Ray Sorenson: And I quote the whole thing: Professor Henry then read a paper by Mrs. Eunice Foote, prefacing it with a few words to the effect that science was of no country and of no sex. The sphere of woman embraces not only the beautiful and the useful, but the true. Mrs. Foote had determined first that the action… [fades]

Zoe Kurland: The paper goes on to describe an experiment by this Eunice Foote, which she conducted in her home laboratory, showing that water vapor and carbon dioxide trapped more heat than other gasses. And her conclusion-

Ray Sorenson: An atmosphere of that gas would give to our earth a much higher temperature and if there once was… [fades]

Zoe Kurland: Ray realized this unknown woman, Eunice Foote, had demonstrated the greenhouse gas effect in 1856. Which was odd because as far as most people knew, the person who first demonstrated it was someone named John Tyndall. He’s been called the father of the greenhouse effect or even the father of climate science. But John Tyndall started his experiments in 1859, and what Ray was looking at suggested Eunice had demonstrated the effect at least three years before that.

So who was this woman? And why had Ray heard of John Tyndall but not of her?

Ray Sorenson: There's no record of her. So I started digging around trying to find out stuff. And then I started thinking, okay, well she's, you know, if she's the first one to do this, she needs to be given credit for it.

Zoe Kurland: Ray wrote up a short paper on his discovery, hoping it might inspire at least one researcher to  dig into the history of Eunice Foote. It went far beyond that. He got one, then another, and another.

Ray Sorenson: It's almost becoming competitive! [Laughs] 

Zoe Kurland: And today, we throw our hat in the ring with the story of Eunice: how the mother of the greenhouse gas effect got lost and found.

Katie Hafner: This is Lost Women of Science. I’m Katie Hafner, and today, I’m joined by Zoe Kurland, who brings us the story of Eunice Newton Foote.

Zoe Kurland: In 1856, Scientific American described the work of a female scientist. They start with the obligatory – you know how people think women can’t do science? Well, guess what! Given the opportunity, some totally can! Not in those exact words, but that’s the gist. And their example? Mrs. Eunice Foote.” The article goes on to describe Eunice’s recent experiments with gasses.

They write, quote, “The columns of the Scientific American have been oftentimes graced with articles on scientific subjects, by ladies, which would do honor to men of the highest scientific reputation; and the experiments of Mrs. Foot [sic] afford abundant evidence of the ability of woman to investigate any subject with originality and precision.”

Pretty glowing review of Eunice’s work.

Katie Hafner: And it just happens to be Scientific American, our esteemed publishing partner. Hey Jeff.

Zoe Kurland: Hello Jeff. So how did Eunice Newton Foote make this discovery, land in the pages of the very prestigious Scientific American, and then get almost instantly overwritten by John Tyndall? 

Katie Hafner: Yeah, I was going to ask that. How did that happen? I’ve never heard of that happening where men kind of take stuff over, but yeah, let’s hear the story.

Zoe Kurland: Alright, let’s take a step back. 

Eunice Newton was born in Goshen, Connecticut in 1819. Eunice’s father was a cattle runner, and Connecticut wasn’t exactly booming, so when Eunice was three years old, her father, Isaac -- yes, his name was Isaac Newton -- her mother Thirza, and her ten brothers and sisters, hit the road in a covered wagon and headed to Bloomfield, New York. Which turned out to be a lucky move for Eunice.

Sally Kohlstedt: New York between 1830 and 1860. I mean, it was the progressive dynamo of- of much of the United States.

Zoe Kurland: Sally Kohlstedt is a science historian and a professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota.

Sally Kohlstedt: That's where the Underground Railroad went through to Canada. You know, that's where all these utopian religions were founded and things like the Oneida community with mixed marriages. So whether it was sex or religion or science or  civil rights, it was all, all being discussed there. It would've been fun to live there.

Zoe Kurland: And Eunice’s family invested in her education. They even sent her to  the first school in the country founded to provide young women with an education comparable to that of college-educated young men: The Troy Female Seminary.

And not only that, the Troy Female Seminary was right next to Rensselaer Polytechnic – the premiere science institute in the country at the time. And Troy students could go over there and take classes sometimes.

We’ve seen different accounts of exactly what age she was when she attended, but this would have been around the 1830s. A pretty big opportunity for a woman to get at the time.

Sally Kohlstedt: So she would have had a very unusual set of access points to sort of learn about and know what was going on.

Zoe Kurland: But even with this education, there was a feeling among the students at the Troy Seminary, documented in their letters, that all of this science education was great, but it was also sort of a tease.

John Perlin: And the biggest complaint was what the hell, we’re learning all the scientific stuff and then when we graduate, all available to us will be, you know, looking pretty.

Zoe Kurland: John Perlin teaches physics at UC Santa Barbara. He’s writing a book about Eunice.

John Perlin: You know, what outlet would we have because of the times. 

Zoe Kurland: Even though the Troy School was different, these learned women still found themselves graduating into a world where they would be expected to cook and clean and needlepoint and smell nice and whatever. The “woman’s sphere” was still very much the “private sphere” -- the home. But Eunice managed to escape that life. In part, because of the man she married.

It all goes back to her father, Isaac Newton, the homesteader, and his perennial financial problems. Upstate New York hadn’t worked out much better than Connecticut for Isaac. He’d made some bad financial decisions, and then he passed away in 1835, leaving his family with a pile of debt. Soon, the Newton farm was about to go into foreclosure. 

But Amanda, Eunice’s older sister, was like, I’m going to fix this and hired an attorney. One Elisha Foote. And yes, that is a man’s name. Our senior producer, Elah, tells us it was actually the name of her uncle.

John Perlin: He was ten years older than Eunice, and he was the district attorney of Seneca Falls. And he was moonlighting in Canandaigua where there was a federal court. And he took on their case, won it, and also won the hand of Eunice. 

Zoe Kurland: In 1841, Eunice and Elisha got married. She was twenty-two years old and he was thirty-two. And they moved to Seneca Falls, New York, where Eunice soon found herself in the epicenter of the American women’s rights movement. One of their neighbors was Elizabeth Cady Stanton herself. Eunice got to know her just as Elizabeth’s star was beginning to rise. 

They actually had a few connections. Elisha had studied law under Daniel Cady, Elizabeth’s father, and Eunice and Elizabeth had both attended the progressive Troy Female Seminary. We don’t know exactly how close they were, but living in Seneca Falls, they definitely knew each other.

Sally Kohlstedt: It's a very tiny town. You're really struck by how small the town is but therefore, how intimate it would've been for women to know each other. 

Zoe Kurland: So in 1848, when Elizabeth Cady Stanton co-organized the country’s first ever women’s rights convention right there in Seneca Falls, Eunice was there. Elisha too. 

Three-hundred people in all attended, mostly locals. At the convention, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott presented the Declaration of Sentiments, a list of demands and resolutions to be put forward for signatures, demands like the right to vote. It was modeled after the Declaration of Independence. But in the opening, it says “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal” and that basically, women were fed up with the tyranny of men.

Eunice’s name appears in the ladies section, right under Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s, and Elisha’s in the gentlemen’s, right above Frederick Douglass.

Katie Hafner: What do you know, Frederick Douglass makes a cameo appearance in this episode. He’s also all over another episode on Dr. Sarah Loguen Fraser.

Zoe Kurland: Well, you know, cool people always know what parties to show up to, so I’m not surprised. 

Katie Hafner: That’s true.

Zoe Kurland: So Eunice is in a really good place for a woman to be at this point in time.

Sally Kohlstedt:  She was immersed in a world that accepted her that gave herself confidence, I think, and that took her seriously. I think that's the important point that I see as I look back at her life. I thought some part of it is you have to be really pretty brilliant and pretty smart and pretty persistent to do that kind of work. On the other hand, if you're not at all supported, it can be extremely tough. And she doesn't seem to have had that problem.

Zoe Kurland: Okay, she’s an early feminist with a feminist husband. She has a great education. And then, she runs a little experiment in her home lab -- with huge ramifications.

That’s after the break.

Zoe Kurland: Elisha and Eunice were a bit of a power couple in Seneca Falls. They had a family together. They did feminism together. And they were both inventors and often collaborators. Among their inventions over the years were: a rubber shoe insert, a paper-making machine, an innovative ice skate.

Katie Hafner: This is incredible. I love people who invent things.

Zoe Kurland: I mean, not to romanticize them too much, ‘cause this is like the 1800s, I don’t want to be back there. But, this is hot. I love this as a couple activity. 

Katie Hafner: Well, exactly. 

Zoe Kurland: But, yes, so one of their inventions was an early thermostat for stoves. John Perlin again.

John Perlin: They mutually developed a metallic piece for the stove, which could tell when the cook stove was getting too hot or too cold, and it would, you know, either cause the metal to constrict or expand and that would change the draft of the stove.

Zoe Kurland: Remember this stove bit, it’s going to become important. 

Katie Hafner: Okay.

Zoe Kurland: Okay, so they had their feminism, their inventions. They were also tapped into the world of scientific research and built themselves a home laboratory.

Sally Kohlstedt: The fact that she conducted her experiments at home, on the one hand, is very impressive.

Zoe Kurland: Historian Sally Kohlstedt again.

Sally Kohlstedt: On the other hand, that was not an uncommon thing. Even in the very wealthy homes in England in the 19th century, they were doing what was called kind of estate science. Lord Kelvin, for example, did all of his work at home. So she was following a model of educated people who were just curious.

Zoe Kurland: Curious about the big questions: How the planet worked. How it had changed over the years. A picture was emerging of a changing earth. Its rocks, its animals, and the temperature were all in flux.

Sally Kohlstedt: Somehow the dinosaurs lived in a different world where it was hotter, warmer, probably more moist, had a lot of ferns. And so she would have know that somehow the world had changed. What made it change? How did it work?

Zoe Kurland: In 1856, Eunice set up a simple home experiment that would help answer that question.

Katharine Hayhoe: What she was interested in in 1856 was looking at the heat trapping properties of gasses.

Zoe Kurland: That’s Katharine Hayhoe, a climate researcher and chief scientist at the nature conservancy. 

Katharine Hayhoe: And she was aware that these heat trapping gasses like carbon dioxide were present in the atmosphere and she wanted to see what effect, um, energy from the sun had on those, as well as infrared energy.

Zoe Kurland: Eunice got some glass cylinders, stuck a thermometer inside each one, and filled them up with different types of gasses. One cylinder had just regular air, so the usual mix of gasses found in our atmosphere. Another had just carbon dioxide. One had dry air, another humid air. And then, she put some in the sun and some in the shade.

And she found a few things. When exposed to sunlight, damp air got hotter than dry air.  Oxygen heated up a bit more than hydrogen. But the biggest difference was between regular air and carbon dioxide. A tube of regular air in the sun heated up to 100 degrees Fahrenheit; carbon dioxide shot up to 120. That’s 38 Celsius versus 49 for our centigrade friends.

Katie Hafner: She was doing it what year? Are we in the 1850s now?

Zoe Kurland: Yeah, this is 1856.

Katie Hafner: Wow, okay. 

Zoe Kurland: So this was a fun, basic physics experiment. But Eunice was looking at the bigger picture, what this means for the planet. What if, at another point in time, the Earth’s atmosphere had more carbon dioxide in it? And here are her very words, written in 1856: An atmosphere of that gas would give to our earth a high temperature.

So, for background -- the real atmosphere is a mix of gasses, mostly nitrogen. Carbon dioxide makes up a tiny proportion of it. But, Eunice concluded that if there was a little more or less carbon dioxide, it could shift the whole planet's temperature. And she also wrote that this could explain why the Earth had been warmer or colder at different points in its history.

Bottom line: more carbon dioxide meant a warmer climate.

Katharine Hayhoe: Which, as we now know, climate change is caused by heat trapping gasses building up in the atmosphere, essentially wrapping an extra blanket around the planet. I mean, that is such a basic, fundamental concept in climate science. And here she was in the 1850s, clearly explaining that to the scientists of the day.

Zoe Kurland: So Eunice submitted her findings to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, or the AAAS, the country’s first national science association. 

Back then, the AAAS was a traveling show – a roving meeting of science superstars, moving from major city to major city, spreading the word about new scientific advancements and discoveries. They’d be greeted with feasts and fanfare, and just a lot of excitement. 

Sally Kohlstedt: It was the place if you wanted to meet and greet other people who were in your field. Also, you wanted to get your ideas up because the papers were gonna cover it. Your ideas would get out in public to the larger public as well as in the proceedings if you were published there. So yes, it was the place to go. 

Zoe Kurland: But science was still a total boys club, and the AAAS was no exception. Women were allowed in the audience, but a woman had never presented before.

Sally Kohlstedt: Men's domain was the public domain. Women's domain was the domestic domain. So a woman who spoke out, and there were certainly some women who were quote “notorious” because they did public speaking, speaking out in public could be a negative on your capacity to be recognized and prominent in social circles. So women were sort of policing themselves as much as they were being policed.

Zoe Kurland: This is actually a really relatable feeling even if it’s not the same level as it was back in the 1800s, I still feel that impulse to make myself small or be modest in certain situations. No one’s telling me to be small, necessarily, but I still find myself leaning towards that. 

Katie Hafner: Yeah, I totally know what you mean. And think about if you were back in the 1800s, how that would be magnified many, many times-

Zoe Kurland: Totally.

Katie Hafner: -that impulse.

Sally Kohlstedt: And so she very well might have been hesitant to present the material herself because that wouldn't have been womanly. But she could ask Joseph Henry to do it.

Zoe Kurland: Eunice’s husband, Elisha, had studied with a man named Joseph Henry, a physicist and one of the science luminaries of the day, well not just a luminary, actually.

Sally Kohlstedt: Joseph Henry was the guy. He was the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. And the Smithsonian Institution in the 1850s was the leading scientific organization in the country.

Zoe Kurland: So why would Joseph Henry agree to present Eunice’s paper? We’re not sure, but Joseph Henry had four daughters and no sons.

Sally Kohlstedt: He very well may have appreciated what young women could do. On the other hand, he's no feminist. So I think he has kind of ambivalent feelings about women in their capacity. And so he probably appreciated the fact that she was gonna be reticent to do her own paper, but also had a brain that was worth listening to. 

Zoe Kurland: So one August day in Albany, Eunice walked into the AAAS convention, took her seat alongside America’s elite scientists, and watched a man present her research.

In what seems to be the style of the time, Joseph Henry started off with the obligatory acknowledgement that this was the work of a woman scientist and women can do science. And then went on to describe her experiment. 

Eunice’s paper didn’t make it into the official conference proceedings, but she formally published it a few months later, and her research made a bit of a splash.

She got a write-up in the Annual of Scientific Discovery, where Ray Sorenson first came across her, and she made it into a German publication, where they mistook her for a man, calling her Herr Foote. 

Katie Hafner: Herr Foote? Mr. Foote!

Zoe Kurland: Which is, you know, I mean, okay. 

And of course, she had that glowing writeup in Scientific American. But that’s kind of it. She fades away. You don’t see her popping up in scientific journals, and certainly no one’s calling her the “mother of climate science.”

Katie Hafner: So what happened? Did she just give it all up and have kids?

Zoe Kurland: Well, a few years after Eunice published her research, an Irish scientist named John Tyndall started looking into similar questions. 

Sally Kohlstedt: As I understand Tyndall, he's a very egotistical kind of guy. He's a very busy guy. He's making money as a lecturer and doing other things.

Zoe Kurland: John Tyndall was working as a professor of natural philosophy at The Royal Institution in London, publishing research in European journals. And we’re not sure to what extent he was paying attention to what Eunice was up to across the pond, or vice versa, but- 

Sally Kohlstedt: There's a lot of international exchange. At the same time, these Americans are still feeling a little bit like the little brother.

So in the late 1850s, John cooked up an experiment of his own, and the basic ingredients were a lot like Eunice’s: gasses, heat and thermometers. But if Eunice’s backyard experiment was a kind of a Toyota Camry: reliable, simple, a good starting point -- can you tell my first car was a Toyota Camry?

Katie Hafner: Oh, it was?

Zoe Kurland: Yes.

Katie Hafner: Mine was a VW Rabbit just saying,

Zoe Kurland: First cars, memories. Anyways, John Tyndall’s experiment though was not a Camry. It was a Rolls Royce.

He had all of the big time equipment of the day, assistants helping him in the lab, and all of that helps him do something Eunice wasn’t able to do. Because even though Eunice had demonstrated the greenhouse gas effect, she didn’t know why it was happening. Why did some gasses heat up so much more than others? That’s where John Tyndall comes in.

Katie Hafner: Okay, I'm on the edge of my seat here, quite honestly.

Zoe Kurland: John was able to take Eunice’s experiment to the next level. Instead of putting his gasses in the sun, his heat source was a copper cube filled with boiling water. Like any hot object, it was giving off radiant heat -- what we’d now call long-wave infrared radiation. 

Every object that contains heat radiates it out -- you, your shoes, the earth. And greenhouse gasses are ones that are extra good at absorbing that radiated heat. Tyndall was able to figure that out. He could measure how much radiation they were absorbing using a spectrometer he built himself. He also showed that sunlight could easily pass through gasses.

And so while Eunice could only say that for some reason gasses got extra hot in the sun, John Tyndall figured out why. 

As he wrote: "The atmosphere admits of the entrance of the solar heat, but checks its exit, and the result is a tendency to accumulate heat at the surface of the planet." 

And like Eunice, he later wrote that changing concentrations of these gasses would explain the fluctuating temperatures of the planet. So points to John Tyndall! But still, Eunice, with her very basic home lab, figured out that these gasses trapped heat and deduced the implications for the planet. I mean, she demonstrated the greenhouse gas effect before John Tyndall.

Sally Kohlstedt: What's interesting is the contrast between his operation and her operation in her own home working with very limited equipment, and yet she does reach this significant conclusion, so I find that makes her even more interesting.

Katie Hafner: And was he aware of what she had done?

Zoe Kurland: Well, that is a huge point of contention for the historians. John Perlin is convinced that he was. They were clearly interested in similar topics. There was some overlap in where they were publishing. And in one case, John Tyndall was editing a magazine that reprinted an article by Elisha Foote, and that article had originally appeared right next to Eunice’s paper.

Katie Hafner: So, one could presume that he saw her work.

Zoe Kurland: It’s like such speculation, but it's very possible that he saw her work and maybe got a little bit of an idea, which people are inspired by one another, but we do know of at least one other instance where John Tyndall failed to credit someone’s influence on his work. He was actually called out for it in a national magazine that accused him of stealing credit from our dear friend Joseph Henry. That time, the dispute was about research on sound waves. But still, that doesn’t look great for his case with Eunice.

Sally Kohlstedt: On the other hand, in the history of science, there's a lot of what we call simultaneous discoveries. Sometimes at two different places in two different ways, two scholars do the same thing. People have written books about simultaneous discovery. So, so that goes on. And so it's possible that Tyndall was there asking many of the same questions because those are the questions.

Zoe Kurland: And by the way, if we’re going to debate who gets credit for discovering the greenhouse gas effect, well, John and Eunice have some competition.

In 1824 -- so three decades before either of their experiments -- the mathematician Joseph Fourier was thinking about the surface of the Earth, why it isn’t much colder. He figured it should be freezing, floating around in space. The heat it was getting from the sun alone couldn’t explain how warm it was. Or the heat from inside the earth. So what was it? The answer: the atmosphere. An insulating blanket that let the heat of the sun in and then trapped it inside. 

He didn’t offer any equations. It was yet another scientist, Claude Pouillet, who actually crunched some numbers a decade later. So you have Joseph figuring out that the atmosphere traps heat, then Claude doing the math, then Eunice Foote actually demonstrating that some gasses trap more heat than others. And then John Tyndall figuring out why. And trust me, that’s not the whole list of people who contributed to the concept of greenhouse gasses. So who quote “discovered” the greenhouse gas effect? Who gets credit for being first? 

It’s not easy to answer. But the least we can do is acknowledge people’s contributions. And John Tyndall, in the opening paper, did note the contributions of Joseph Fourier, Claude Pouillet and a couple of others. He did not mention Eunice Newton Foote. So why would he do that? Well, there’s always the chance he really hadn’t heard of her. She had a few factors working against her.

Sally Kohlstedt: She was rural, she was not connected, she was a woman, she was in America. All of those things probably contributed to a certain amount of invisibility.

Zoe Kurland: Another factor working against her? By the time John Tyndall had published his paper, Eunice had moved on. She was looking at other scientific questions. A year after Joseph Henry presented her paper at AAAS, he presented another paper from Eunice about how air generated static electricity.

Eunice might have also been distracted by a big lawsuit Elisha had undertaken on their behalf. Remember that thermostat I told you not to forget about? 

Katie Hafner : The stove thermostat? 

Zoe Kurland: Yes, yes, the very one.

Katie Hafner : Uh huh.

Zoe Kurland: Well, they had a patent for that, but a lot of people were interested in thermostats back then.

John Perlin: All these people start to infringe on the patent.

Zoe Kurland: John Perlin again. 

John Perlin: And Elisha, who was an attorney, took the case of all these infringers, all the way up to the Supreme Court. And so Elisha wins the case, right? And so all these people who were infringers were forced to give the Footes, you know, all the money that they received in profits from stealing the invention.

Zoe Kurland: The defendants were ordered to pay the Footes over sixty-thousand dollars. That’s today’s equivalent of over 2 million dollars. 

John Perlin: So Eunice turns from scientist to becoming the matron of wealth.

Zoe Kurland: And at this point, no one’s talking about the great scientist Eunice Newton Foote. When her daughter married John Henderson, the senator responsible for the 14th Amendment, there was a writeup in the paper. It named the father of the bride, Elisha Foote, and described him as the head of the Appeal Board at the Patent Office. And the article also mentions the mother, Eunice Foote, described as wearing a lilac silk dress. 

Katie Hafner: Yeah, that’s uh, that’s interesting. Um, I mean, this dress sounds really nice. 

Zoe Kurland: I mean, it sounds beautiful. Yeah. 

There aren’t many records of more science that Eunice did, besides that one presentation at AAAS. But she continued inventing into her forties. She filed a patent in her own name on that rubber shoe insert -- it was intended to quote “prevent the squeaking of boots and shoes." She’s very practical.

Katie Hafner: Love the rubber shoe insert. 

Zoe Kurland: She also developed a new cylinder-type of paper-making machine that lowered the cost of manufacturing. And if she didn’t have a life of scientific glory, it sounds like she still had an intellectually stimulating life, and a wonderfully ordinary one.

In a letter archived by the Smithsonian written in the 1870s, Eunice wrote to her daughter. In the letter, she talks about buying dresses, spending time with her grandson, running her household and finding the dining room girl dead drunk on the floor. She’s just thinking about regular degular, mundane, sometimes gossipy, life stuff. 

Eunice Newton Foote died in 1888 at age 69, a few years after Elisha. And for more than a century, she was almost entirely forgotten.

John Tyndall’s legacy, meanwhile, lived on -- and how! People named so much stuff after this man: Tyndall National Institute in Ireland, the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in the United Kingdom, Mount Tyndall in California and Mount Tyndall, again, in Australia, the Tyndall Glaciers in Colorado and Chile. He even got a crater on the moon named after him.

Katie Hafner: Wait, people have craters on the moon named after them?

Zoe Kurland: Yes, we can get you one. 

His death, John Tyndall’s death, on the other hand, not so glamorous. John Tyndall’s wife killed him by giving him an overdose of his medicine.

Katie Hafner: What? You’ve gotta be kidding. Wait.

Zoe Kurland: I know.

Katie Hafner: She actually- was she convicted?

Zoe Kurland: No, she told everyone it was an accident. But based on what we know of Tyndall, I, I, I can't imagine he was such a peach as a husband.

Katie Hafner: My God. So back to Eunice. Why do you think she receded that way? Because of Tyndall?

Zoe Kurland: I don't think that it was because of Tyndall. I- I honestly think that she was content.

Sally Kohlstedt: Ultimately, my assumption is that she followed her own instincts. Created a good life, but wasn't interested necessarily in becoming someone who could be called the mother of anything in terms of science itself. Uh, but she wanted to make a contribution. I mean, that's kind of the way most of those 19th Century scientists thought. Can I make a contribution to knowledge? 

Zoe Kurland: Like, as you know, she was curious about things. She had a home laboratory. She was able to patent stuff. And she had a supportive husband, two daughters and grandkids. She had a life that made sense to her. And I don't know that she wanted for anything else. 

But thanks to Ray Sorensen and the many enthusiasts that have followed, Eunice is finally getting her day. Her name is out there. Like, really, out there. On a break between reading scientific journals from the 1800s, Ray Sorenson was watching Jeopardy and- 

Ray Sorenson: I saw something about women scientists, so I paid attention to it. 

Jeopardy Contestant 1: Women of science 400. 

Zoe Kurland: And he heard a familiar name. 

Ken Jennings: Eunice Foote's circumstances affecting the heat of the sun's rays foreshadowed the study of this effect. Alec.

Jeopardy Contestant 2: What is global warming?

Ken Jennings: No. Vince. 

Jeopardy Contestant 1: What is the greenhouse effect? 

Ken Jennings: That's the specific effect, yes. 

Ray Sorenson: That's probably the single biggest highlight. My name did not get mentioned in the Jeopardy episode, but yeah, that's okay.

Katie Hafner: This episode of Lost Women of Science was hosted by me, Katie Hafner.

Zoe Kurland: And me, Zoe Kurland. It was produced by me with our senior producer, Elah Feder. We had fact checking help from Danya AbdelHameid. Lizzie Younan composed all of our music. We had sound design from Rebecca Cunnigham, as well as from Hans Hsu who mastered this episode.

Katie Hafner: We want to thank Jeff Delviscio at our publishing partner, Scientific American, and my co-executive producer Amy Scharf and our senior managing editor Deborah Unger.

Zoe Kurland: Thanks also to Martha Weiss for contacting us about Eunice Newton Foote in the first place

Katie Hafner: Lost Women of Science is funded in part by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and Schmidt Futures. We're distributed by PRX. 

You can find transcripts of all of our episodes on our website, lostwomenofscience.org, as well as some very fascinating further reading. So If you want to learn more about Eunice’s work, go to the website. Again, it’s lostwomenofscience.org. And do not forget to hit that all-important donate button.

See you next week.

Zoe Kurland

Katie Hafner

Zoe Kurland , producer

Elah Feder , senior producer

Ray Sorenson, retired petroleum geologist and amateur historian

Sally Kohlstedt , science historian and professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota

John Perlin , author and lecturer who has been researching the story of Eunice Newton Foote

Katharine Hayhoe , climate scientist and chief scientist at the Nature Conservancy

FURTHER READING

A nnual of Scientific Discovery, Year-Book of Facts in Science and Art, 1857, Gould and Lincoln, Boston, 1857. Write-up of the 1856 talk at AAAS, where a man named Joseph Henry read Eunice’s paper for her.

On the Heat in the Sun’s Rays, Eunice Foote, The Journal of Science, 1856 

Eunice Foote’s Pioneering Research on co2 and Climate Warming , Ray Sorenson, AAPG Datapages, Search and Discovery, January 2011. 

“Who discovered the greenhouse effect?” Sir Roland Jackson, The Royal Institution, May 2019. 

From scientific arguments to scepticism: Humans' place in the Greenhouse

Affiliation.

  • 1 University of East Anglia, UK.
  • PMID: 34472995
  • PMCID: PMC8814937
  • DOI: 10.1177/09636625211035624

This article investigates the different roles attributed to humanity in the climate change debate, through the depiction of the greenhouse effect . Our hypothesis is that the stance associated with different genres will not only demonstrate different conceptualisations of the greenhouse effect but also convey different views on humans' capacity (or lack of capacity) to mitigate climate change. The corpus under study is composed of texts pertaining to three genres which display particular viewpoints: scientific papers present a documented view on the phenomenon, online forum discussions present exchanges between users who endorse or question particular characteristics of the Greenhouse , and sceptical newspaper articles explicitly deny the existence of an anthropogenic phenomenon. Through a corpus-based, cognitive and pragmatic analysis of the metaphorical expression greenhouse effect , the research shows that humans' place(s) in the Greenhouse is a significant part of environmental argumentative strategies.

Keywords: greenhouse effect; media; online forum; scepticism; science.

  • Climate Change*
  • Greenhouse Effect*
  • Share full article

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How Earth Might Have Turned Into a Snowball

A team of scientists thinks the planet may have been thrust into its longest ice age because less gas leaked out of volcanoes.

greenhouse effect scientific paper

By Katrina Miller

Around 717 million years ago, Earth’s humid landscapes and roiling blue waters transformed into a frigid, barren world. Scientists nicknamed this stage of geological history, and others like it , Snowball Earth.

What exactly froze the planet nearly solid has been a mystery, as has how it remained that way for 56 million years. On Wednesday, a team of researchers at the University of Sydney said they have it figured out. Earth’s glaciation, they say, may have come from a global drop in carbon dioxide emissions, a result of fewer volcanoes expelling the gas into the atmosphere.

Less carbon dioxide makes it more difficult for Earth’s atmosphere to trap heat. If the depletion were extreme enough, they argued, it could have thrust the planet into its longest ice age yet.

The theory, published in the journal Geology , adds insight to the way geological processes influenced Earth’s past climate. It may also help scientists better understand trends in our current climate.

“These days, of course, humans are having a large impact on CO2 in the atmosphere,” said Adriana Dutkiewicz, a sedimentologist at the University of Sydney who led the study. “But back in time, there were no humans, and so everything was basically modulated by geological processes.”

There are many ideas about what turned Earth into a snowball. One popular theory suggests that minerals released by the weathering of igneous rock sucked enough carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to set off a deep freeze.

Perhaps that helped kick off a global glaciation, Dr. Dutkiewicz said, but it couldn’t have kept Earth frozen for 56 million years on its own.

“So there has to be another mystery mechanism that would have sustained the glaciation for that long,” she said.

An artistic depiction of planet Earth mostly covered in snow with a slice of green peeking through in one area.

Dr. Dutkiewicz and her colleagues turned their eyes to volcanoes because of a newly available model of Earth’s shifting tectonic plates. As the continents spread apart, they studied the changing length of the mid-ocean ridge — a chain of underwater volcanoes — predicted by the model.

The team then calculated the amount of volcanic gas emissions at the beginning of, and throughout, the ice age. Their results showed a drop in atmospheric carbon dioxide sufficient to initiate and sustain a 56-million-year glaciation.

A reduction in volcanic gas emissions has been proposed as an explanation for Snowball Earth before. But according to Dr. Dutkiewicz, this is the first time researchers have proved that the mechanism was viable through modeled computations.

Dietmar Müller, a geophysicist at the University of Sydney and an author of the study, said the work was one way “to distinguish between alternative models for this very ancient part of Earth’s evolution.” If scientists know there was an ice age, Dr. Müller explained, “then we can say this one reconstruction model is perhaps more likely than the other one.”

Of course, a model is still just that: a model. Without real-world data to back it up, the researchers can’t rule out other possibilities.

“One thing about geology, there are no definite answers,” Dr. Dutkiewicz said. “But based on a combination of different lines of evidence, we can suggest that this is a very likely process.”

Francis Macdonald, a geologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who was not involved in the work, said studies like this were important for learning about why climates fail. But he is hesitant to readily accept outcomes from models of the ancient seafloor, because there is little data revealing what Earth’s oceanic crust was like at that time.

“How do we actually test that?” Dr. Macdonald asked about the team’s model. “I think it’s a really big challenge.”

Still, Dr. Müller thinks it is important to try to put bounds on the amount of volcanic gas emitted in the past, particularly when it comes to running climate models for the future. “Usually, that’s the most uncertain parameter,” he said.

Research like this can help scientists distinguish the influence of geological activity from human-induced climate change. But could a natural drop in volcanic emissions ever save us from the amount of carbon we have pumped into our atmosphere today ?

“Unfortunately not,” Dr. Dutkiewicz said. “We can study these ancient perturbations,” she added, “but the human-induced change is a different kind of beast.”

Katrina Miller is a science reporting fellow for The Times. She recently earned her Ph.D. in particle physics from the University of Chicago. More about Katrina Miller

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COMMENTS

  1. The Greenhouse Effect: Science and Policy

    10 Feb 1989 Vol 243, Issue 4892 pp. 771 - 781 DOI: 10.1126/science.243.4892.771 This article has a correction. Please see: Erratum: The Greenhouse Effect: Science and Policy - 26 May 1989 Abstract Global warming from the increase in greenhouse gases has become a major scientific and political issue during the past decade.

  2. A Hiatus of the Greenhouse Effect

    195 Altmetric Metrics Abstract The rate at which the global average surface temperature is increasing has slowed down since the end of the last century. This study investigates whether this warming...

  3. Climate Change and the Impact of Greenhouse Gasses: CO2 and NO, Friends

    Greenhouse effect occurs in the troposphere (the lower atmosphere layer), where life and weather occur. In the absence of greenhouse effect, the average temperature on Earth's surface is estimated around -19°C, instead of the current average of 14°C (Le Treut et al., 2007). Greenhouse effect is produced by greenhouse gasses (GHG).

  4. PDF The Greenhouse Effect: Science and Policy

    The greenhouse effect works because some gases and particles in an atmosphere preferentially allow sunlight to filter through to the surface of the planet relative to the amount of radiant infrared energy that the atmosphere allows to escape back up to space.

  5. (PDF) Greenhouse Effect: Greenhouse Gases and Their ...

    The clear effect of the greenhouse gases is the stable heating of Earth's atmosphere and surface, thus, global warming. The ability of certain gases, greenhouse gases, to be transparent to inbound ...

  6. Earth Reacts to Greenhouse Gases More Strongly Than We Thought

    Earth Reacts to Greenhouse Gases More Strongly Than We Thought | Scientific American November 3, 2023 9 Earth Reacts to Greenhouse Gases More Strongly Than We Thought Climate scientists,...

  7. Frontiers

    Life on Earth is possible thanks to greenhouse effect. Without it, temperature on Earth's surface would be around -19 ∘ C, instead of the current average of 14 ∘ C. Greenhouse effect is produced by greenhouse gasses (GHG) like water vapor, carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), methane (CH 4 ), nitrous oxides (N x O) and ozone (O 3 ).

  8. From scientific arguments to scepticism: Humans' place in the Greenhouse

    First, scientific papers represent documented views on the greenhouse effect and objective viewpoint is an essential criterion for scientific legitimacy (Knudsen, 2015). Second, online forum discussions highlight the characteristics of the greenhouse effect , which can be questioned or disputed.

  9. The greenhouse effect: Damages, costs and abatement

    The buildup of so-called "greenhouse gases" in the atmosphere — CO2 in particular-appears to be having an adverse impact on the global climate. This paper briefly reviews current expectations with regard to physical and biological effects, their potential costs to society, and likely costs of abatement. For a "worst case" scenario it is impossible to assess, in economic terms, the ...

  10. Climate Impact of Increasing Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide

    pp. 957 - 966 DOI: 10.1126/science.213.4511.957 Abstract The global temperature rose by 0.2°C between the middle 1960's and 1980, yielding a warming of 0.4°C in the past century. This temperature increase is consistent with the calculated greenhouse effect due to measured increases of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

  11. The most influential climate change papers of all time

    As you might expect from a broad mix of physical scientists, economists, social scientists and policy experts, the nominations spanned a range of topics and historical periods, capturing some of the great climate pioneers and the very latest climate economics research. Here's a link to our summary of who said what.

  12. A simple experiment on global warming

    Abstract A simple experiment has been developed to demonstrate the global warming potential of carbon dioxide (CO 2) gas in the Earth's atmosphere. A miniature electric resistance heating element was placed inside an inflatable balloon. The balloon was filled with either air or CO 2.

  13. Greenhouse effect and climate change: scientific basis and overview

    1 Excerpt Impact of climate change on biodiversity and food security: a global perspective—a review article Melese Genete Muluneh Environmental Science, Agricultural and Food Sciences Agriculture & Food Security 2021 Climate change is happening due to natural factors and human activities.

  14. [PDF] History of the greenhouse effect

    The greenhouse effect is now commonly accepted by the scientific community, politicians and the general public. However, the misnomer 'greenhouse effect' has perpetuated, and there are a number of aspects of the effect which are poorly understood outside the atmospheric sciences. On such misconception is that greenhouse research is a recent phenomenon; another is that glasshouses are warmed by ...

  15. Climate change and its impact on biodiversity and human welfare

    Impacts of climate change. Increase in atmospheric temperature has serious consequences on biodiversity and ecosystems, and human wellbeing. The most important evidences of climate change is the long term data available on the CO 2 levels, global temperature and weather patterns. The impacts of climate change in the coming decades are based on ...

  16. Greenhouse effect

    greenhouse effect, a warming of Earth 's surface and troposphere (the lowest layer of the atmosphere) caused by the presence of water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, and certain other gases in the air. Of those gases, known as greenhouse gases, water vapour has the largest effect. The origins of the term greenhouse effect are unclear.

  17. The Woman Who Demonstrated the Greenhouse Effect

    Paula Mangin. Climate Change. In 1856, decades before the term "greenhouse gas" was coined, Eunice Newton Foote demonstrated the greenhouse effect in her home laboratory. She placed a glass ...

  18. From scientific arguments to scepticism: Humans' place in the Greenhouse

    Through a corpus-based, cognitive and pragmatic analysis of the metaphorical expression greenhouse effect, the research shows that humans' place (s) in the Greenhouse is a significant part of environmental argumentative strategies. Keywords: greenhouse effect; media; online forum; scepticism; science.

  19. Scientific Basis for the Greenhouse Effect

    Scientific Basis for the Greenhouse Effect. The international community may reach agreement to limit carbon emissions as early as I 992 when Brazil will host a negotiating convention on climate change. Europe and Japan have already made commitments to place ceilings on future emissions at or below present rates.

  20. How Earth Might Have Turned Into a Snowball

    A team of scientists thinks the planet may have been thrust into its longest ice age because less gas leaked out of volcanoes. By Katrina Miller Around 717 million years ago, Earth's humid ...

  21. PDF Scientometrics, 15(1-2): p.7-12, 1989

    within the framework of the informational model of science proposed by V. V. Nalimov. Within this model publications are regarded as carriers of information, journals — as communication channels, and citations — as a specific language of scientific information showing the effect of the papers cited on the evolution of information flows.

  22. PDF Kondratiev Long Cycles: New Information About Discussions in The ...

    economic development of the USSR had a noticeable effect on the negative evaluation of Kondratiev's method for identifying long cycles. The study defines the relations between Kondratiev's views on the problem of long cycles and his probabilistic-statistical approach to the analysis of society. JEL Classification: Z

  23. Mesoscale modelling of the summer climate response of Moscow

    In this paper, the experience of applying a regional climate model to simulating the summer climate features of Moscow metropolitan area is examined. Also, an assessment is made of climate response to the implementation of a scenario of twofold city expansion. The model (COSMO-CLM) was adapted to the conditions of the region under investigation, supplemented by specific urban canopy ...

  24. PDF What Is Your Substrate Trying to Tell You

    Plant Science Division, University of Idaho Moscow, ID 83844-2339 This article is the fourth in a five-part series of articles on properties of potting mixes that are important for optimum plant growth. The goal of these articles is to provide you with some guidelines for chemical and physical characteristics of potting mixes. The words potting ...