Page:On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Earth.pdf/4

16 them. In the Physical Society of Stockholm there have been occasionally very lively discussions on the probable causes of the ice age; and these discussions have, in my opinion, led to the conclusion that there exists as yet no satisfactory hypothesis that could explain how the climatic conditions for an ice age could be realized in so short a time as that which has elapsed from the days of the glacial epoch. The common view hitherto has been that the Earth has cooled in the lapse of time; and if one did not know that the reverse has been the case, one would certainly assert that this cooling must go on continuously. Conversations with my friend and colleague, Professor, together with the discussions above referred to, led me to make a preliminary estimate of the probable effect of a variation of the atmospheric carbonic acid on the temperature of the Earth. As this estimation led to the belief that one might in this way probably find an explanation for temperature variations of 5°–10° C., I worked out the calculation more in detail, and lay it now before the public and the critics.

From geological researches the fact is well established that in tertiary times there existed a vegetation and an animal life in the temperate and arctic zones that must have been conditioned by a much higher temperature than the present in the same regions. The temperature in the arctic zones appears to have exceeded the present temperature by about eight or nine degrees. To this genial time the ice age succeeded, and this was one or more times interrupted by interglacial periods with a climate of about the same character as the present, sometimes even milder. When the ice age had its greatest extent, the countries that now enjoy the highest civilization were covered with ice. This was the case with Ireland, Britain (except a small part in the south), Holland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, Russia (to Kiev, Orel, and Nijni Novgorod), Germany and Austria (to the Harz, Erz-Gebirge, Dresden, and Cracow). At the same time an ice-cap from the Alps covered Switzerland, parts of France, Bavaria (south of the Danube), the Tyrol, Styria, and other Austrian countries, and descended into the northern part of Italy. Simultaneously, too, North America was covered with ice on the west coast to the forty-seventh parallel, on the east coast to the fortieth,