Chapter 1 of the IPCC Fourth Report (1), entitled “Historical overview of Climate Change Science” makes no mention of any early measurements.
Weart (2) in his “History of the Carbon Dioxide Greenhouse Effect” also makes no mention of them.
Yet Beck (3) has provided an annotated list with links to internet access of almost 200 references to peer reviewed academic scientific journal articles containing some 40,000 measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide by chemical methods between 1800 and 1960. Comprehensive data sets in more than 390 papers were ignored despite contributions from prominent scientists like Robert Bunsen, Konrad Roentgen, and J S Haldane or the Nobel Prize winners August Krogh and Otto Warburg.
The earliest listed publication in 1800, and others from 1809-1816, are by Theodore de Saussure. He was the son of Horace-Benedict de Saussure, who invented the Hot Box (which resembled a greenhouse) which was the basis of the theory of the climate developed by Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier in 1822 and 1824 which is claimed to have originated the greenhouse effect. Yet the measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide by de Saussure’s son are completely ignored.
Other early references by Letts and Blake 1802 and 1719-15 from The Royal Dublin Society give an additional list of early measurements.
Beck (4-5) has published several summaries and commentaries on the early measurements and include an argument with Ralph Keeling (6).
Most of the early measurements were from Northern Europe. Beck considered that the earliest measurements were subject to various errors but the widespread use of more reliable equipment, particularly the Pettenkoffer titrimetric method in 1812 led to high accuracy, with a maximum 3{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} error reducing to 1{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} for the data of Henrik Lundegardh (1920–26).
The measurements selected by Beck were from rural areas or the periphery of towns, under comparable conditions of a height of approx. 2 m above ground at a site distant from potential industrial contamination. They showed a variation with time of day, of season, and of wind speed and direction, making it difficult to derive a local average, There were frequent measurements of concentrations higher than those reported as background concentrations by NOAA at present.