If the greenhouse effect is a key concept for understanding global warming today, its conceptualization dates back to a time when this warming was not on the agenda.
We have to go back to the beginning of the 19th century and to the studies of Joseph Fourier on the temperatures on the Earth’s surface to find the genesis of this idea according to which the light and heat of the Sun easily penetrate the atmosphere, but do not emerge. not so simply.
“Sciences Chrono” is today refreshing its memory around this first understanding of the greenhouse effect and the heat of an Earth lost in the immensity of the cosmos.
Archive of the day
Excerpt from the “Preliminary Speech” of the Analytical theory of heat, by Joseph Fourier, published in 1822. Reading carried out in 1999 as part of the France Culture program “Le temps des sciences”, entitled “Joseph Fourier, a long-unknown scientist”.
For further
Joseph Fourier always transforms science (Journal du CNRS, 2018)
Buffon and the greenhouse effect (The story2009)
Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier and the discovery of the greenhouse effect (Jean-Louis Dufresne, Meteorology2006)
History of the greenhouse effect (Jacques Grinevald, Benoît Urgelli, Planet Terre2000)
Fourier’s theory of heat applied to the temperature of the Earth (James Lequeux, Bibnum2017)
Joseph Fourier publishes The Analytical Theory of Heat (France Memory)
Bibliographic references
Dissertation on the analytical theory of heatJoseph Fourier, 1822 (Academy of Sciences)
Musical references
The opening credits: The escape by Kick and Flute
The end credits: It happened near you by NTM
