Handbook of Energy

Section 45

Climate Change

The subject area Climate Change includes information relating to the effect of energy use on the Earth’s climate. The earliest step in this respect was the basic realization that climate can change. This required first, accurate methods of measuring temperature, rainfall, and other weather conditions and events, and second, the ability to track these conditions and events over an extended time to identify changing climate patterns.

The American polymath Benjamin Franklin associated Europe’s severe winter of 1783–84 with the eruption of a volcano in Iceland, an early recognition of the ability of volcanism to affect climate. However, it was not until more than a half century later that the modern discipline of climate ...