It's certainly true that Ms. Foote was maltreated by the culture of the time. However, Ms. Foote's conclusion was not supported by her evidence. She demonstrated that carbon dioxide absorbs some solar radiation. She did NOT demonstrate that CO2 absorbs the outgoing infrared radiation from the earth's surface -- the primary process causing the earth's surface temperatures to rise. I explained this crucial distinction in an essay to which I linked in a previous comment. Did you not read that essay? If so, I will be happy to explain in greater detail any points that I failed to make clear.
Thank you for your comment. I agree that Eunice Foote demonstrated only that CO₂ absorbs solar radiation. I do not claim that she demonstrated the absorption of outgoing infrared radiation from the Earth's surface. Given the limitations of a homemade laboratory in 1856, it would have been impossible—even for someone as brilliant as Foote—to make such a discovery. This post primarily tells her story rather than explaining the specific process responsible for rising surface temperatures on Earth.
Yes, Foote was just a few years too early to be able to put all the pieces together. I suppose that a perfectly informed genius would have been able to combine Herschel's discovery of infrared radiation with the developing field of spectroscopy to figure it out theoretically, but that would have been quite a mental leap, as the discovery that gases could be identified by their spectral lines came a few years later. Moreover, Tyndall's work relied on some complex equipment that would have been too expensive for an unfunded researcher like Foote.
A curious side note: a modern student might be able to replicate Tyndall's work with little more than one of those cheap IR motion detectors, which trigger on the long wavelength IR. I don't know how far their sensitivity extends beyond wavelengths above 10,000 µm corresponding to temperatures below 100ºF.
It's certainly true that Ms. Foote was maltreated by the culture of the time. However, Ms. Foote's conclusion was not supported by her evidence. She demonstrated that carbon dioxide absorbs some solar radiation. She did NOT demonstrate that CO2 absorbs the outgoing infrared radiation from the earth's surface -- the primary process causing the earth's surface temperatures to rise. I explained this crucial distinction in an essay to which I linked in a previous comment. Did you not read that essay? If so, I will be happy to explain in greater detail any points that I failed to make clear.
Thank you for your comment. I agree that Eunice Foote demonstrated only that CO₂ absorbs solar radiation. I do not claim that she demonstrated the absorption of outgoing infrared radiation from the Earth's surface. Given the limitations of a homemade laboratory in 1856, it would have been impossible—even for someone as brilliant as Foote—to make such a discovery. This post primarily tells her story rather than explaining the specific process responsible for rising surface temperatures on Earth.
Yes, Foote was just a few years too early to be able to put all the pieces together. I suppose that a perfectly informed genius would have been able to combine Herschel's discovery of infrared radiation with the developing field of spectroscopy to figure it out theoretically, but that would have been quite a mental leap, as the discovery that gases could be identified by their spectral lines came a few years later. Moreover, Tyndall's work relied on some complex equipment that would have been too expensive for an unfunded researcher like Foote.
A curious side note: a modern student might be able to replicate Tyndall's work with little more than one of those cheap IR motion detectors, which trigger on the long wavelength IR. I don't know how far their sensitivity extends beyond wavelengths above 10,000 µm corresponding to temperatures below 100ºF.
Thank you for sharing this gem!