In the Shadow of Climate Models: CO2 studies as climate research
Type
presentation
Date Issued
2024-08-30
Author(s)
Abstract
In the 1970s, climate research grew both in numbers of projects and of disciplines involved. In the shadow of the dominant climate models, many of them were not explicitly labelled “climate science” at that time. Only later, they were integrated into an ever more complex and interdisciplinary climate research. In my contribution, I would like to shed light on one of these initially peripheral fields in a small country: CO2 studies in Switzerland. Similar to Charles D. Keeling’s CO2 measurements in Mauna Loa, the Swiss project did not fit into a traditional disciplinary category. However, the 1970s were not only a time of economic stagnation and hence funding restraints, they also led into a reorganisation of scientific institutions and research funding. In my contribution, I analyse the changing interest in CO2 in Switzerland in the scientific and political context of the 1970s. In doing so, I illuminate research activities that were not necessarily considered as climate research in the first place, and I show how they gradually became part of it.
Language
English
Event Title
Workshop "Climate and the Beginning of the Crisis Decades"
Event Location
University of Manchester (UK)
Event Date
30.8.2024