Global frozing
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1827: French polymath Jean-Baptiste Fourier predicts an atmospheric effect keeping the Earth warmer than it would otherwise be. This was the effect that would later be called, by an inaccurate analogy, the "greenhouse effect."
1863: Irish scientist John Tyndall concluded that water vapour is the strongest absorber of radiant heat in the atmosphere and is the principal gas controlling air temperature.
1896: Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius formulated his greenhouse law: "If the quantity of carbonic acid increases in geometric progression, the augmentation of the temperature will increase nearly in arithmetic progression."
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1958: American scientist Charles David Keeling started continuous monitoring of CO2 levels in the atmosphere at the Mauna Loa base in Hawaii and soon he finds a regular year-on-year rise.
1979: World Meteorological Organization sponsored the First World Climate Conference, which adopts climate change as major issue and calls on governments "to foresee and prevent potential man-made changes in climate."
1985: UN Environment Programme, World Meteorological Organization and International Council for Science organized the conference on the "Assessment of the Role of Carbon Dioxide and Other Greenhouse Gases in Climate Variations and Associated Impacts", which concluded that greenhouse gases "are expected" to cause significant warming in the next century and that some warming is inevitable
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1987: Warmest year since records began.
1988: UN Environment Programme and World Meteorological Organization established "The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change" (IPCC) to evaluate the risk of climate change caused by human activity. American scientist John Holdren during his testimony to Congress presented the research results of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and concluded that "the evidence that the earth is warming by an amount which is too large to be a chance fluctuation and the similarity of the warming to that expected from the greenhouse effect represents a very strong case"
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1990: The first report of the IPCC finds that the planet has warmed by 0.5°C in the past century.
1991: Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Philippines, throwing debris into the stratosphere that shields the Earth from solar energy, which helps interrupt the warming trend. Average temperatures drop for two years before rising again.
1997: Kyoto Protocol agrees legally binding emissions cuts for industrialised nations, averaging 5.4%, to be met by 2010.
2002: Parliaments in the European Union, Japan and others ratify Kyoto.
2003: Globally it is the third hottest year on record, but Europe experiences the hottest summer for at least 500 years, with an estimated 30,000 fatalities as a result.
2005: On 16 February, the Kyoto Protocol comes into force. In December, Kyoto signatories agree to discuss emissions targets for the second compliance period beyond 2012, while countries without targets, including the US and China, agree to a "non-binding dialogue" on their future roles in curbing emissions. Europe launches its Emissions Trading Scheme, despite criticism of the idea.
2006: Paul Crutzen, a Dutch Nobel prize winning atmospheric chemist suggests the massive injection of sulfur into the stratosphere to form particles that reflect sunlight away.
2007: The fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC places the blame for global warming firmly on humankind
2008, September: The internet site globalfrozing.com was created to promote the methods, which can "affect the temperature of atmosphere and greenhouse gas concentrations directly"
2008, November: British "Innovation, universities, science and skills" committee of parliament held the hearing named "Geo-engineering" dedicated to the "beneficial intervention in order on a global scale to change the climate in directions that we wish in the context of severe global heating with which we are threatened"
2009, March: American Meteorological Society issues the "Policy Statement on Geoengineering". John Holdren becomes American president science adviser.
2009, April 08: John Holdren told The Associated Press that Obama administration is discussing radical technologies to cool Earth's air, such as using the stratospheric sulfur aerosols. The words "geoengineering" and "global cooling" become the common buzz in press.
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