Eunice Newton Foote

Eunice Newton Foote was an American scientist and women’s rights advocate whose 1856 experiments showed that carbon dioxide and water vapor warm when exposed to sunlight.

Greenhouse effect: The warming of a planet’s surface and lower atmosphere when gases absorb and re-emit outgoing infrared radiation. Foote’s experiments supplied early evidence that atmospheric gases can contribute to warming.
American Association for the Advancement of Science: A US scientific society founded in 1848 to promote the advancement of science. Foote’s 1856 paper was presented at its annual meeting.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton: An American women’s rights activist who helped organize the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention. Foote and Stanton both signed the convention’s Declaration of Sentiments.
Eunice Newton Foote’s 1856 paper: Foote’s short scientific report on the effects of solar heat on gases and atmospheric conditions. The paper records her experimental observations and proposed atmospheric implications.
Infrared radiation: Electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths longer than visible light and shorter than microwaves. Modern accounts distinguish infrared absorption from the sunlight-driven heating Foote measured.
Joseph Henry: An American physicist and the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Henry presented Foote’s paper at the 1856 meeting when she could not present it herself.
Seneca Falls Convention: An 1848 meeting in New York that launched organized advocacy for women’s rights in the United States. Foote’s signature connected her to this landmark gathering.
Climate change: Long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns, driven by natural processes and human activities. Foote’s work is frequently discussed in histories of early ideas about atmospheric warming.
Carbon dioxide: A colorless gas composed of one carbon atom and two oxygen atoms, with the chemical formula CO₂. It was the gas that produced the strongest heating in Foote’s experiments.
Scientific American: An American science magazine founded in 1845. It reported Foote’s findings and her exclusion from presenting at the meeting.

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