from Part III - Scientific Investigations of the Climate System
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 November 2025
The most famous graph in all of Earth science is the Keeling curve. This graph is the result of the persistence, vision, and skill of Charles David Keeling (1928–2005). It shows the results of measuring atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations or amounts since 1958. There was no instrument to measure CO2 concentrations accurately until Keeling invented one. Keeling showed the rest of humanity that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere can be measured accurately, that it is increasing, and that the increase is due to human causes, mainly burning fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas. His attention to detail and his passion for accuracy were legendary. His measurements of atmospheric CO2 are universally acknowledged to be rock-solid. The measurements are now being carried on by other scientists, including his son, Ralph Keeling. CO2 is only part of the human-caused strengthening of the greenhouse effect. Additional strengthening is due to methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, chlorofluorocarbons, and a few other greenhouse gases, plus some small particles, called aerosols.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.