Global warming be damned. The 19th century biologist Louis Agassiz who studied Alpine glaciers was the first to propose that the Earth had been subject what phenomena in the past?
"of the erratic which is consistent with the modern understanding. Louis Agassiz was the first to scientifically propose that the Earth had been subject to a past ice age. In the same year, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Prior to this proposal, Goethe, de Saussure, Venetz, Jean de Charpentier, Karl Friedrich Schimper and others had made the glaciers of the Alps the subjects of special study, and Goethe, Charpentier as well as Schimper had even arrived at the conclusion that the erratic blocks of alpine rocks scattered over the slopes and summits"
"period of the glaciers. In July 1837 Agassiz presented their synthesis before the annual meeting of the Schweizerische Naturforschende Gesellschaft at Neuchâtel. The audience was very critical and some opposed to the new theory because it contradicted the established opinions on climatic history. Most contemporary scientists thought that the Earth had been gradually cooling down since its birth as a molten globe. In order to overcome this rejection, Agassiz embarked on geological fieldwork. He published his book ""Study on Glaciers"" (""Études sur les glaciers"") in 1840. De Charpentier was put out by this, as he had also been preparing a"
"where the first systematic scientific research on ice ages was conducted by Louis Agassiz at the beginning of the 19th century. Here the Würm glaciation of the last glacial period was intensively studied. Pollen analysis, the statistical analyses of microfossilized plant pollens found in geological deposits, chronicled the dramatic changes in the European environment during the Würm glaciation. During the height of Würm glaciation, BP, most of western and central Europe and Eurasia was open steppe-tundra, while the Alps presented solid ice fields and montane glaciers. Scandinavia and much of Britain were under ice. During the Würm, the Rhône Glacier"
"20th century Robert Parker wrote a well-known work about the rock crystals of the Swiss Alps; at the same period a commission was established to control and standardize the naming of Alpine minerals. In the Miocene Epoch the mountains underwent severe erosion because of glaciation, which was noted in the mid-19th century by naturalist Louis Agassiz who presented a paper proclaiming the Alps were covered in ice at various intervals—a theory he formed when studying rocks near his Neuchâtel home which he believed originated to the west in the Bernese Oberland. Because of his work he came to be known"
"as the ""father of the ice-age concept"" although other naturalists before him put forth similar ideas. Agassiz studied glacier movement in the 1840s at the Unteraar Glacier where he found the glacier moved per year, more rapidly in the middle than at the edges. His work was continued by other scientists and now a permanent laboratory exists inside a glacier under the Jungfraujoch, devoted exclusively to the study of Alpine glaciers. Glaciers pick up rocks and sediment with them as they flow. This causes erosion and the formation of valleys over time. The Inn valley is an example of a"
"first considered by astronomers (John Herschel, 1792–1871) and then postulated by geologists (Louis Agassiz, 1807-1873). In parallel, there were also several attempts to explain the climate change by the influence of astronomical forces (the most comprehensive of them was the theory put forward by James Croll in the 1860s). Milanković studied the works of Joseph Adhemar whose pioneering theory on the astronomical origins of ice ages were formally rejected by his contemporaries and James Croll whose work was effectively forgotten about even after acceptance by contemporaries suhc as Charles Darwin . Despite having valuable data on the distribution of ice"
"was strongly opposed by Charles Lyell's version of Hutton's uniformitarianism, and was gradually abandoned by Buckland and other catastrophist geologists. A field trip to the Alps with Agassiz in October 1838 convinced Buckland that features in Britain had been caused by glaciation, and both he and Lyell strongly supported the ice age theory which became widely accepted by the 1870s. In the same general period that scientists first suspected climate change and ice ages, Joseph Fourier, in 1824, found that Earth's atmosphere kept the planet warmer than would be the case in a vacuum. Fourier recognized that the atmosphere transmitted"
"further, concluding that, in the recent past, Switzerland had been covered with one vast sheet of ice, originating in the higher Alps and extending over the valley of northwestern Switzerland to southern slopes of the Jura. The publication of this work gave fresh impetus to the study of glacial phenomena in all parts of the world. Familiar, then, with recent glaciation, Agassiz and the English geologist William Buckland visited the mountains of Scotland in 1840. There they found clear evidence in different locations of glacial action. The discovery was announced to the Geological Society of London in successive communications. The"
"planet as a whole. Prior to the 18th century, scientists had not suspected that prehistoric climates were different from the modern period. By the late 18th century, geologists found evidence of a succession of geological ages with changes in climate. There were various competing theories about these changes, and James Hutton, whose ideas of cyclic change over huge periods of time were later dubbed uniformitarianism, was among those who found signs of past glacial activity in places too warm for glaciers in modern times. In 1815 Jean-Pierre Perraudin described for the first time how glaciers might be responsible for the"
"a hut constructed upon one of the Aar Glaciers, which for a time he made his home, to investigate the structure and movements of the ice. In 1840, Agassiz published a two-volume work entitled ""Études sur les glaciers"" (""Studies on Glaciers""). In this, he discussed the movements of the glaciers, their moraines, their influence in grooving and rounding the rocks, and in producing the striations and ""roches moutonnees"" seen in Alpine-style landscapes. He accepted Charpentier's and Schimper's idea that some of the alpine glaciers had extended across the wide plains and valleys of the Aar and Rhône. But he went"
"June 16, 1818. He worked primarily in the Valais canton area of the western Alps. In 1821 he completed the first draft of his work ""Mémoire sur les Variations de la température dans les Alpes de la Suisse"", suggesting that much of Europe had at one point in the past been covered by glaciers. The book was published in 1833 after additional research in the Swiss Alps, seven years before Louis Agassiz published his famous work ""Étude sur les glaciers"" (Study on Glaciers). Ignaz Venetz Ignaz (Ignace) Venetz (1788 — 1859) was a Swiss engineer, naturalist, and glaciologist; as one"
"the summer months of 1836 at Devens, near Bex, in the Swiss Alps with his former university friend Louis Agassiz (1801–1873) and Jean de Charpentier. Schimper, de Charpentier and possibly Venetz convinced Agassiz that there had been a time of glaciation. During the winter of 1836/37, Agassiz and Schimper developed the theory of a sequence of glaciations. They mainly drew upon the preceding works of Venetz, de Charpentier and on their own fieldwork. Agassiz appears to have been already familiar with Bernhardi's paper at that time. At the beginning of 1837, Schimper coined the term ""ice age"" (""""Eiszeit"""") for the"
"be an effective strategy for combating global warming as ""absurd."" In the book ""Climate of Extremes"", Balling, along with his co-author Patrick Michaels, contend that certain phenomena usually attributed to anthropogenic global warming have actually been occurring for more than a century. The phenomena named include the loss of ice on Mount Kilimanjaro. Balling has made similar statements about current sea level rise; namely, that it has been occurring for 8,000 years and it is therefore ""quite a stretch"" to blame it on global warming. In the December 1995 issue of Harper's Magazine, Ross Gelbspan described Balling and other global"
"glaciers in 1840 when he met Louis Agassiz at the Glasgow meeting of the British Association, and in subsequent years he made several visits to Switzerland, where he was particularly impressed by Bernhard Studer's theories, and also to Norway for the purpose of obtaining accurate data. His observations led him to the view that a glacier is an imperfect fluid or a viscous body which is urged down slopes of a certain inclination by the mutual pressure of its parts, and involved him in some controversy with Tyndall and others both as to priority and to scientific principle. A notable"
"The buildings and other improvements on the property are not historically significant. The mid-19th century was a period of significant debate within the geological community about the nature of markings found in northern New England similar to those found here. A common belief was that they were caused by drifting icebergs during the Flood of Noah, as recounted in the Bible. The first hypothesis involving a massive glacier was proposed in 1859 by John DeLaski, an amateur geologist from Rockland, Maine, which did not receive significant scientific press until 1864. That summer, Louis Agassiz, then a professor at Harvard, vacationed"
"attempts to understand ""how"" the surface of the Earth had changed. The first comprehensive theories of mountain building were proposed during this period, as were the first modern theories of earthquakes and volcanoes. Louis Agassiz and others established the reality of continent-covering ice ages, and ""fluvialists"" like Andrew Crombie Ramsay argued that river valleys were formed, over millions of years by the rivers that flow through them. After the discovery of radioactivity, radiometric dating methods were developed, starting in the 20th century. Alfred Wegener's theory of ""continental drift"" was widely dismissed when he proposed it in the 1910s, but new"
"Opinions on these events are often mixed, given his extensive scientific legacy in other areas. In 2007, the Swiss government acknowledged the ""racist thinking"" of Agassiz but declined to rename the Agassizhorn summit. In 2017, the Swiss Alpine Club declined to revoke Agassiz's status as a member of honor, which he received in 1865 for his scientific work, because the club considered this status to have lapsed on Agassiz's death. Louis Agassiz Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz (; ; May 28, 1807December 14, 1873) was a Swiss-American biologist and geologist recognized as an innovative and prodigious scholar of Earth's natural history."
"and to found its Museum of Comparative Zoology. Agassiz is known for his regimen of observational data gathering and analysis. He made vast institutional and scientific contributions to zoology, geology, and related areas, including writing multi-volume research books running to thousands of pages. He is particularly known for his contributions to ichthyological classification, including of extinct species, and to the study of geological history, including to the founding of glaciology. In the 20th and 21st centuries, Agassiz's resistance to Darwinian evolution, and the scientific racism implicit in his writings on human polygenism, have tarnished his reputation and led to controversies"
"of geological ages with changes in climate. There were various competing theories about these changes, and James Hutton, whose ideas of cyclic change over huge periods of time were later dubbed uniformitarianism, was among those who found signs of past glacial activity in places too warm for glaciers in modern times. In 1815 Jean-Pierre Perraudin described for the first time how glaciers might be responsible for the giant boulders seen in alpine valleys. By the end of the 19th century, scientific opinion had turned decisively against any belief in a human influence on climate. And whatever the regional effects, few"
"Lake Agassiz Lake Agassiz was a very large glacial lake in central North America. Fed by glacial meltwater at the end of the last glacial period, its area was larger than all of the modern Great Lakes combined though its mean depth was not as great as that of many major lakes today. First postulated in 1823 by William H. Keating, it was named by Warren Upham in 1879 after Louis Agassiz, when Upham recognized that the lake was formed by glacial action. During the last Ice Age, northern North America was covered by a glacier, which alternately advanced and"
"Global cooling Global cooling was a conjecture during the 1970s of imminent cooling of the Earth's surface and atmosphere culminating in a period of extensive glaciation. Press reports at the time did not accurately reflect the full scope of the debate in the scientific literature. The current scientific opinion on climate change is that the Earth underwent global warming throughout the 20th century and continues to warm. By the 1970s, scientists were becoming increasingly aware that estimates of global temperatures showed cooling since 1945, as well as the possibility of large scale warming due to emissions of greenhouse gases. In"
"that glaciers had sculpted many of the features of the Yosemite Valley and surrounding area. This notion was in stark contradiction to the accepted contemporary theory, promulgated by Josiah Whitney (head of the California Geological Survey), which attributed the formation of the valley to a catastrophic earthquake. As Muir's ideas spread, Whitney tried to discredit Muir by branding him as an amateur. But Louis Agassiz, the premier geologist of the day, saw merit in Muir's ideas and lauded him as ""the first man I have ever found who has any adequate conception of glacial action."" In 1871, Muir discovered an"
"in 1857. Louis Agassiz, a Swiss-American naturalist, argued for separate divine creations. In his work he noted similarities of distribution of like species in different geological era; a phenomenon clearly not the result of migration. Agassiz questioned how fish of the same species live in lakes well separated with no joining waterway. He concluded they were created at both locations. According to Agassiz the intelligent adaptation of creatures to their environments testified to an intelligent plan. The conclusions of his studies led him to believe that whichever region each animal was found in, it was created there: “animals are naturally"
"latter effect is currently causing global warming, and ""climate change"" is often used to describe human-specific impacts. From ancient times, people suspected that the climate of a region could change over the course of centuries. For example, Theophrastus, a pupil of Aristotle, told how the draining of marshes had made a particular locality more susceptible to freezing, and speculated that lands became warmer when the clearing of forests exposed them to sunlight. Renaissance and later scholars saw that deforestation, irrigation, and grazing had altered the lands around the Mediterranean since ancient times; they thought it plausible that these human interventions"
"random changes in global temperatures for years to decades at a time, but long-term changes emanate only from so-called ""external forcings."" These forcings are ""external"" to the climate system, but not necessarily external to Earth. Examples of external forcings include changes in the composition of the atmosphere (e.g., increased concentrations of greenhouse gases), solar luminosity, volcanic eruptions, and variations in Earth's orbit around the Sun. The greenhouse effect is the process by which absorption and emission of infrared radiation by gases in a planet's atmosphere warm its lower atmosphere and surface. It was proposed by Joseph Fourier in 1824, discovered"
"past century, have been attributed to various factors which have resulted in a global warming. This warming is the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans since the mid-20th century and its projected continuation. Some effects on both the natural environment and human life are, at least in part, already being attributed to global warming. A 2001 report by the IPCC suggests that glacier retreat, ice shelf disruption such as that of the Larsen Ice Shelf, sea level rise, changes in rainfall patterns, and increased intensity and frequency of extreme weather events are attributable in"
"book about the glaciation of the Alps. De Charpentier felt that Agassiz should have given him precedence as it was he who had introduced Agassiz to in-depth glacial research. Besides that, Agassiz had, as a result of personal quarrels, omitted any mention of Schimper in his book. All together, it took several decades until the ice age theory was fully accepted by scientists. This happened on an international scale in the second half of the 1870s following the work of James Croll, including the publication of ""Climate and Time, in Their Geological Relations"" in 1875, which provided a credible explanation"
"extent and extended duration, whereas Buckland, to be consistent with the biblical account, was advocating a universal flood of short duration. Eventually, Buckland abandoned flood geology in favor of the glaciation theory advocated by Louis Agassiz, following a visit to the Alps where Agassiz demonstrated the effects of glaciation at first hand. As a result of the influence of Jameson, Buckland, and other advocates of natural theology, the nineteenth century debate over catastrophism took on much stronger religious overtones in Britain than elsewhere in Europe. Uniformitarian explanations for the formation of sedimentary rock and an understanding of the immense stretch"
"became known for his prediction of gradual global cooling and a coming glacial period (colloquially, an ""ice age""), and he subsequently highlighted a more immediate future prospect of global warming. In 1965 he published his study on ""The early medieval warm epoch and its sequel"", based on ""data from the realms of botany, historical document research and meteorology"". His view was that ""Evidence has been accumulating in many fields of investigation pointing to a notably warm climate in many parts of the world, that lasted a few centuries around A.D. 1000–1200, and was followed by a decline of temperature levels"
"and the ice ages were clearly marked in the geological record. Georges Cuvier's ""Recherches sur les ossements fossiles de quadrupèdes"" (1812) had made accepted facts of the extinctions of mammals that were to be relevant to human antiquity. The concept of an ice age was proposed in 1837 by Louis Agassiz, and it opened the way to the study of glacial history of the Quaternary. William Buckland came to see evidence of glaciers in what he had taken to be remains of the biblical Flood. It seemed adequately proved that the woolly mammoth and woolly rhinoceros were mammals of the"
"(1797-1875) also saw adaptation to changing environments as a sign of a benevolent Creator, but his uniformitarianism envisaged continuing extinctions and replacements. As seen in correspondence between Lyell and John Herschel, scientists were looking for creation by laws rather than by miraculous interventions. In continental Europe, the idealism of philosophers including Lorenz Oken (1779-1851) developed a ""Naturphilosophie"" in which patterns of development from archetypes were a purposeful divine plan aimed at forming humanity. These scientists rejected transmutation of species as materialist radicalism threatening the established hierarchies of society. The idealist Louis Agassiz (1807-1873), a persistent opponent of transmutation, saw mankind"
"(AMS) and the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) released statements supporting the scientific consensus that the Earth's mean surface temperature had been rising for decades, with the AAAS concluding: ""based on multiple lines of scientific evidence that global climate change caused by human activities is now underway... it is a growing threat to society"". Eight committees investigated the allegations and published reports, finding no evidence of fraud or scientific misconduct. The scientific consensus that global warming is occurring as a result of human activity remained unchanged throughout the investigations. The incident began when a server used by the Climatic Research"
"engineer, naturalist, and glaciologist was one of the first scientists to recognize glaciers as a major force in shaping the earth. In the 19th century, many scientists came to favor erratics as evidence for the end of the Last Glacial Maximum (ice age) 10,000 years ago, rather than a flood. Geologists have suggested that landslides or rockfalls initially dropped the rocks on top of glacial ice. The glaciers continued to move, carrying the rocks with them. When the ice melted, the erratics were left in their present locations. Charles Lyell's ""Principles of Geology"" (v. 1, 1830) provided an early description"