Abstract
MR. H. A. PHILLIPS, in NATURE, vol. xxvii. p. 127, thinks that the effect of the increasing quantity of hydrocarbons in the air from the combustion of coal will be to make climates more extreme. It seems to me the effect will be the direct contrary. Gaseous and vaporous hydrocarbons absorb heat much more powerfully than air, and whatever makes the atmosphere absorb and retain more solar heat than at present will tend to equalise temperatures between day and night, and also between different latitudes. I think, however, that any possible effect of hydrocarbons will be quite insignificant in comparison with the effect of the watery vapour of the atmosphere, which, as Tyndall has shown, moderates climates by its power of absorbing solar heat.
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MURPHY, J. Pollution of the Atmosphere. Nature 27, 241 (1883). https://doi.org/10.1038/027241c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/027241c0
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