Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
interested in CO
2
, and perhaps no individual in the 1950s and 1960s did
more than Revelle to put atmospheric CO
2
and climate change on the Cold
War research agenda.
2
In 1958, when Charles David Keeling began perma-
nent operations at Mauna Loa and atmospheric CO
2
measured about 315
ppm, Revelle was Keeling's boss.
The introduction of CO
2
into the Cold War research system marks
the beginning of the political history of global warming. Between 1955 and
1963, Revelle and a handful of creative and influential scientists capitalized
on existing government research to gain funding and support for specific
projects that involved measuring and monitoring atmospheric constituents
like CO
2
. They tapped into a pervasive interest in geophysical research that
might have a bearing on weather modification, nuclear test detection, fall-
out, or other defense-related subjects in order to solicit funding and mate-
rial support for atmospheric science. Soon, leaders in atmospheric science
realized that in order to more fully study the processes of the atmosphere,
they needed to secure funding for scientific institutions that could sup-
port long-term projects. Again, they capitalized on the potential security
implications of geophysical research, and again they incorporated CO
2
into
the heart of atmospheric science.
Tying the study of CO
2
to Cold War research enabled scientists to revisit
CO
2
with new eyes, but there were two sides to the Cold War research coin.
On one side, funding, new technologies, and institutional support gave
scientists access to better data that confirmed that CO
2
had, in fact, begun
to rise, and that its increase could have geophysical consequences. Revelle
in particular framed CO
2
rise as a form of natural experiment, one that the
new tools and technologies of Cold War science could help to monitor. On
the other side of the coin, however, scientists harbored anxieties born of
the Cold War, and these anxieties influenced how they structured their
institutions, employed their new Cold War resources, and interpreted
study results. As a result, in the 1950s and 1960s, research on atmospheric
CO
2
— and atmospheric science more broadly— reflected both the greatest
hopes and the deepest fears of the Cold War milieu from which it sprang.
the grand exPeriment
Revelle's contributions to climate change history were both administra-
tive and scientific. His most important scientific contribution involved a
