ARRHENIUS, Svante August. Ueber den Einfluss des atmosphärischen Kohlensäuregehalts auf die Temperatur der Erdoberfläche.
Stockholm: P.A. Norstedt, 1896. First edition.

A mint copy of the paper in which Arrhenius gave the first quantitative study of the ‘greenhouse effect’ and the relation of carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere to global warming. Arrhenius "developed a theory for the explanation of the glacial periods and other great climatic changes, based on the ability of carbon dioxide to absorb the infrared radiation emitted from the earth’s surface. Although the theory was based on thorough calculations, it won no recognition from geologists" (DSB). Joseph Fourier proposed already in 1824 that gases in the atmosphere might increase the surface temperature of the Earth. It was however Arrhenius who investigated this quantitatively and worked out a relationship between CO2 levels and the earth’s temperature. "He examines the importance of carbon dioxide in the earth’s heat balance and concludes that a doubling of the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere would result in an average global temperature increase of about 6 Kelvin's, or 6°C. He publishes his results in the paper “On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground” (Parkinson, p.433).

8vo: 216 x 140 mm. Original printed wrappers, mint. Issued in the series 'Bihang till K. Svenska Vet.Akad. Handlingar'. Papers from this supplement series to the 'Proceedings of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences' are often mistakenly identified as offprints or 'first separate edition' because they have their own title page with the publishers named and their own pagination, but they are not - all publications from this series were printed separately in this way and issued in a wrapper mentioning number and volume. 102 pp.