First English translation of Fourier's paper by Ebenezer Burgess of Amherst College.

First English translation of Fourier's paper by Ebenezer Burgess of Amherst College.

Detail map of Paris, Île-de-France, France Overview map of Paris, Île-de-France, France

A: Paris, Île-de-France, France

Fourier First Describes the Greenhouse Effect

1824
First page of Fourier's paper as it was originally published.  

First pages of Fourier's paper as it was originally published.  

In 1824 French mathematician and physicist Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier published "Remarques générales sur les températures du globe terrestre et des espaces planétaires," Annales de Chimie et de Physique, 27 (1824) 136–67. In this paper Fourier showed how gases in the atmosphere might increase the surface temperature of the earth. This was later called the greenhouse effect

Fourier's paper was translated into English by Ebeneser Burgess, and published in the American Journal of Science 32 (1837) 1-20

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