Earlier this year I received an email from a reader asking background questions about an article I had written more than four decades ago. Given the time gap, my recollection was hazy. To be honest, it was almost non-existent. So I was intrigued – and then astonished when I read the feature.
I had written about the British glaciologist John Mercer, author of a 1978 Nature paper in which he warned that continuing increases in fossil fuel consumption would cause amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide to soar. Global temperatures could rise by 2C by the mid-21st century, causing major ice loss at the poles and threatening a 5-metre rise in sea levels, he warned.
