ABSTRACT
The increase in global temperatures resulting from increasing carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere is not a new phenomenon and needs to be accommodated in planning. The amounts of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere should be reduced to mitigate dangerous warming and climate change. Through a series of experiments and some good fortune, Tyndall discovered that while oxygen and nitrogen are truly transparent to the infrared radiation, CO2 and other trace gases were not and would block it. Building on the work of Fourier and Tyndall, Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius investigated the impact on climate of significant increases or decreases in the CO2 in the atmosphere. The Keeling Curve is the clearest and most dramatic indication of the increases in CO2 in the atmosphere that have been occurring. There has been a phenomenal amount of scientific work performed on climate change.
