Behind the Curve: Science and the Politics of Global Warming

1. The Cold War Roots of Global Warming

16 1 The Cold War Roots of Global Warming In the archives of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography is a photograph of a young Roger Revelle—​ age twenty-seven or so—​ sorting specimens on the deck of the collecting vessel E. W. Scripps. The year is circa 1936, and Revelle’s setup looks decidedly ad hoc. He sits on what look to be the wooden slats of the aft deck, right leg bent beneath him and left leg splayed out, amid an assortment of mason jars, collecting rags, and a bucket. In a black wool sailor’s jacket, with one sleeve rolled up and cuffed white trousers stained at the knees, he is hardly the picture of a careful, plodding scientist. He looks a little bit like I imagine James Dean might have, had he played an oceanographer: intensely focused and unflappably cool, taking care of the business of collecting specimens while enjoying the ocean breeze on a boat named for a member of the family into which he had married—​ the namesake also of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, from which he would earn a Ph.D. and which he would eventually direct. More than anything, as Revelle looms over the little mason jars, his hand enveloping whatever tiny specimen he is picking up at the moment, the man in the photograph—​ the self-appointed “‘granddaddy’ of the theory of global warming”—​ looks altogether too big for whatever specific form of science he is conducting.1 Roger Revelle was a good oceanographer. He was an excellent science administrator, and he was an even better science advocate. He was also The Cold War Roots of Global Warming | 17 interested in CO2 , and perhaps no individual in the 1950s and 1960s did more than Revelle to put atmospheric CO2 and climate change on the Cold War research agenda.2 In 1958, when Charles David Keeling began permanent operations at Mauna Loa and atmospheric CO2 measured about 315 ppm, Revelle was Keeling’s boss. The introduction of CO2 into the Cold War research system marks the beginning of the political history of global warming. Between 1955 and 1963, Revelle and a handful of creative and influential scientists capitalized on existing government research to gain funding and support for specific projectsthatinvolvedmeasuringandmonitoringatmosphericconstituents like CO2 . They tapped into a pervasive interest in geophysical research that might have a bearing on weather modification, nuclear test detection, fallout , or other defense-related subjects in order to solicit funding and material support for atmospheric science. Soon, leaders in atmospheric science realized that in order to more fully study the processes of the atmosphere, they needed to secure funding for scientific institutions that could support long-term projects. Again, they capitalized on the potential security implications of geophysical research, and again they incorporated CO2 into the heart of atmospheric science. TyingthestudyofCO2 toColdWarresearchenabledscientiststorevisit CO2 with new eyes, but there were two sides to the Cold War research coin. On one side, funding, new technologies, and institutional support gave scientists access to better data that confirmed that CO2 had, in fact, begun to rise, and that its increase could have geophysical consequences. Revelle in particular framed CO2 rise as a form of natural experiment, one that the new tools and technologies of Cold War science could help to monitor. On the other side of the coin, however, scientists harbored anxieties born of the Cold War, and these anxieties influenced how they structured their institutions, employed their new Cold War resources, and interpreted study results. As a result, in the 1950s and 1960s, research on atmospheric CO2 —​ and atmospheric science more broadly—​ reflected both the greatest hopes and the deepest fears of the Cold War milieu from which it sprang. The Grand Experiment Revelle’s contributions to climate change history were both administrative and scientific. His most important scientific contribution involved a 18 | Chapter 1 reevaluation of the role of the oceans in the global carbon cycle, a study supported by funds from the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC).3 In the early 1950s, nuclear weapons tests dumped large, known amounts of radiation into the atmosphere at specified times and places, and both the ONR and AEC had a keen interest in where that radiation went. One way to trace it was by following radioactive carbon through the atmosphere. In fact, alongside naturally occurring cosmic radiation, nuclear tests created a nearly ideal experiment for...