Climate: Looking back

For 9 months from October 1996 the IMG instrument on the Japanese Advanced Earth Observing Satellite (ADEOS) measured the spectra of long-wave radiation leaving the Earth. Almost 30 years earlier, between April 1970 and January 1971, the IRIS instrument onboard NASA's Nimbus 4 meteorological satellite took a similar set of measurements. A comparison of the two sets of infrared spectra provides direct evidence for a significant increase in the greenhouse effect, with atmospheric levels of methane, carbon dioxide, ozone and chlorofluorocarbons all seen to have increased.

Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997
JOHN E. HARRIES, HELEN E. BRINDLEY, PRETTY J. SAGOO, RICHARD J. BANTGES
Nature 410, 355-357 (15 March 2001)
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15 March 2001 table of contents