CLIMATE WATCH - An Outline of the History of Climate Science
Level of carbon dioxide gas (CO2) in the atmosphere, as later measured in ancient ice, was about 290 ppm (parts per million).
Eunice Foote describes filling glass jars with water vapour, carbon dioxide and air, and comparing how much they heated up in the sun.
“The highest effect of the sun’s rays I have found to be in carbonic acid gas,”
“The receiver containing the gas became itself much heated – very sensibly more so than the other – and on being removed, it was many times as long in cooling.”1859
John Tyndall discovered that some gases block infra-red radiation.
1930s
1938
Guy Callendar showed that global warming was underway, reviving interest in the question.
Telescope studies showed a greenhouse effect raises temperature of the atmosphere of Venus far above the boiling point of water.
He was not expecting to detect an annual rise.
Keeling's measurements have been continued.
Climate research comes from geology, geophysics, geochemistry, palaeontology, oceanography, atmospheric physics, meteorology, glaciology, etc etc etc. Hundreds of thousands of scientific papers, over decade after decade, since the 19th century. It's not some fringe thing from a handful of scientists.
Climate science is probably one of the most thoroughly scrutinised fields of science ever - on top of the peer review process for each paper it has something that has never existed in any area of science before - the IPCC process.
The current scientific understanding of climate change (as summarised in IPCC reports) is accepted by every professional association of scientists on Earth - in every field of science. Over 200 academies, including chemists, physicists, geologists, etc etc.
Those associations represent the global scientific community of around 8 million research scientists.