— Ch. 1 · Origins And Context —
Charney Report.
~5 min read · Ch. 1 of 5
In 1975, Wallace Broecker published an article in the journal Science that popularized the term global warming. He predicted unprecedented temperatures for the twenty-first century based on early digital climate models from the 1960s. The scientific community recognized humanity's ability to affect the climate by the mid-1970s. Yet no clear consensus existed regarding the actual pace of warming at that time. Some media outlets promoted a hypothesis of global cooling driven by anthropogenic aerosol emissions. Reid Bryson helped circulate this counter-narrative among the public during the decade. Global droughts caused famine and skyrocketing food prices throughout the 1970s. These events underscored the critical importance of climate stability for agriculture. The first oil shock led President Jimmy Carter to consider increasing domestic fossil fuel production. Carter also created the Department of Energy to manage these new challenges. In 1977, the United States Department of Energy prepared a research program. They requested a report from the JASON Committee, a group advising the Department of Defense. Gordon MacDonald and Rafe Pomerance met with Frank Press, the science advisor to President Carter. On the 22nd of May 1979, Press wrote to National Academy of Sciences President Philip Handler. He asked for a study to determine the scientific reliability of existing climate models.
The Charney Committee
Philip Handler selected Jule Charney as chair of the working group on carbon dioxide and climate. Charney was a renowned meteorologist and modeler at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He assembled eight distinguished scientists to form the Ad Hoc Study Group on Carbon Dioxide and Climate. The members included Akio Arakawa, D. James Baker, Bert Bolin, Robert E. Dickinson, Richard M. Goody, Henry Stommel, and Carl Wunsch. A photograph taken in 1978 shows Charney serving as chairman of this committee. The group convened on the 23rd of July 1979, in Woods Hole on the Massachusetts coast. They met at a conference center owned by the National Academy of Sciences. Nine scientists attended the meeting along with their families. Observers from various federal agencies and staff of the National Research Council oversaw the report development. This gathering represented a unique convergence of top-tier expertise in atmospheric physics and oceanography. The team aimed to evaluate the robustness of computer simulations predicting future temperature rises. Their task involved assessing whether these models could accurately predict equilibrium climate sensitivity. This value represents the amount of warming caused by doubling atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations relative to pre-industrial levels.