Guy Stewart Callendar Scientist
Guy Stewart Callendar (February 1898 - October 1964) was an English steam engineer and inventor. His main contribution to knowledge was developing the theory that linked rising carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere to global temperature. This theory, earlier proposed by Svante Arrhenius, has been called the Callendar effect. Callendar thought this warming would be beneficial, delaying a "return of the deadly glaciers."Callendar expanded on the work of several 19th century scientists, including Arrhenius and Nils Gustaf Ekholm. Callendar published 10 major scientific articles, and 25 shorter ones, between 1938 and 1964 on global warming, infra-red radiation and anthropogenic carbon dioxide. Others, such as the Canadian physicist Gilbert Plass, expanded upon Callendar's work in the 1950s and 1960s.In 1938, Callendar compiled measurements of temperatures from the 19th century on, and correlated these measurements with old measurements of atmospheric CO2 concentrations. He concluded that over the previous fifty years the global land temperatures had increased, and proposed that this increase could be explained as an effect of the increase in carbon dioxide. These estimates have now been shown to be remarkably accurate, especially as they were performed without the aid of a computer. Callendar assessed climate sensitivity value at 2°, which is on the low end of the IPCC range.Callendar was the son of Hugh Longbourne Callendar, an English physicist who studied thermodynamics.