The greenhouse effect was first described in the 1820s by French physicist Joseph Fourier, who noted correctly that the planet would be uninhabitably cold if it weren’t for Earth’s blanket of insulating gases. In 1859, Irish physicist John Tyndall discovered carbon dioxide to be one such greenhouse gas, and in 1896 Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius predicted that doubling CO2 in the atmosphere would warm the planet by about 4 degrees Celsius, a prediction that’s roughly in line with those of our most powerful modern supercomputers. Needless to say, discussion of this basic science by actors
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