Indeed, let us delve into the year 1955, a moment of profound significance in the nascent field of climate science, as it marks the point when Phillips produced a convincing computer model of the global atmosphere. This achievement was far from trivial, especially when we consider the technological landscape of the mid-1950s, an era when computers, though rapidly advancing, were still very much in their infancy.
To truly appreciate Phillips’s accomplishment, one must understand the computational environment of the time. The 1950s witnessed a crucial transition in computing. Companies like IBM were actively moving away from their traditional tabular punch-card business machines, which had powered the analytical capabilities of large organizations, including military apparatuses, during World War II. Thomas Watson Jr., poised to take over IBM in 1952, recognized that electronic computers, despite his father’s skepticism about their profitability and reliability, represented the future and would necessitate a strategic transformation for the company. This shift was not merely an internal corporate decision; it was spurred, in part, by antitrust suits aimed at opening up the electronics field, with Attorney General Herbert Brownell even deeming 1955 “the antitrust year”. It was during this period that IBM introduced the IBM 650, famously dubbed the “Model T” of computers, driving the company’s leadership in the burgeoning computer business and fostering the invention of early programming languages.
Despite these advancements, computers were still cumbersome and expensive. Even into the 1960s, a machine like the IBM 1401 could cost between $125,000 and $150,000, possessing a mere four kilobytes of memory, and was predominantly used by large businesses or for university research. The very form that computers would eventually take was not yet certain; digital machines had not definitively triumphed over their analog counterparts, and much foundational work in cybernetics and operational research was still being conducted without extensive computer aid.
Within this context, Phillips’s successful development of a “convincing computer model of the global atmosphere” was a major milestone. Prior to the 1950s, the concept of “global warming studies as such” was practically nonexistent, with critical earlier discoveries, such as the infrared absorption of carbon dioxide, considered “external” to this direct line of inquiry. However, the post-World War II era, particularly the 1950s, saw generous funding for various scientific fields, including those relevant to climate studies, often from military applications of radar and infrared radiation. This funding notably promoted advancements in radiative transfer theory and measurements, and critically, the development of digital computers which began to “affect many fields including the calculation of radiation transfer in the atmosphere, and [made] it possible to model weather processes”.
It is worth noting that Phillips was not alone in this pioneering effort. In the same year, 1955, US researcher Gilbert Plass, utilizing “early computers,” meticulously analyzed the infrared absorption of various gases and concluded that a doubling of CO2 concentrations would lead to a temperature increase of 3-4°C. This parallel work underscores the burgeoning recognition of computers as essential tools for understanding atmospheric processes.
The ability to create complex and “convincing” models of the global atmosphere marked a pivotal step beyond earlier, simpler “paper-and-pencil calculations”. It demonstrated the nascent power of these electronic machines to simulate intricate natural systems. This era also saw the formalization of concepts like “total factor productivity” (TFP), which aimed to capture “invisible technology-enabled improvements” in economic inputs, reflecting a growing awareness of technology’s pervasive and often unquantifiable impact across various domains.
Therefore, Phillips’s model in 1955 stands as a testament to the burgeoning computational power of the mid-20th century and its instrumental role in laying the groundwork for modern climate science. It was a crucial step in a trajectory that would see computers become increasingly sophisticated, eventually enabling global climate models that offer precise estimates of temperature changes resulting from increased greenhouse gas concentrations. This early modeling effort was an essential precursor to our contemporary understanding of climate change, demonstrating how the evolving capabilities of machines began to unlock previously unimaginable insights into the planet’s complex systems.