In the mid 1950s, not many scientists were concerned that humanity was adding carbon dioxide gas ( CO2) to the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels. The suggestion that this would change the climate had been abandoned decades earlier by nearly everyone. A particularly simple and powerful argument was that the added gas would not linger in the air. Most of the CO2 on the surface of the planet was not in the tenuous atmosphere, but dissolved in the huge mass of water in the oceans. Obviously, no matter how much more gas human activities might pour into the atmosphere, nearly all of it would wind up safely buried in the ocean depths. - LINKS -
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<=The oceansThere was a hidden flaw in this argument. It was discovered as an indirect consequence of work at the University of Chicago by Willard Libby and collaborators, scientists who had given the question scarcely a thought. In the mid 1950s, they were busy with an exciting new technique — the use of radioactive carbon-14 to find the age of ancient materials. The origins and motives of this technique were diverse, and so therefore was its support. The Chicago group was funded chiefly by the University and by a foundation dedicated to supporting anthropology and archeology. A crucial auxiliary technique, the enrichment of carbon isotopes, was developed because the isotopes were useful for medical research. But as was usually the case in nearly every field of postwar science, a substantial part of the support was indirectly related to the Cold War. Libby acknowledged that he was "also indebted to the Air Force... for a contract for the development of low-level counting techniques during 1949..." The Air Force had negligible interest in the dates of Egyptian mummies, but it had a hearty concern for delicate radioactivity measurements (one likely use was detecting residues from Soviet nuclear bomb tests). As Libby discreetly remarked, Chicago people built up expertise in measuring radioactivity "in other connections." The separation of isotopes was likewise under investigation for military as well as civilian uses. Thus carbon-14 research could incorporate more highly developed techniques than would have been available for archeology alone