Arrhenius, Svante August (1859–1927)

SVANTE AUGUST ARRHENIUS is considered both a founder of physical chemistry for his work on ionic solutions and their electrolytic dissociation and the father of climate change science for his work on the contribution of carbon dioxide to global warming. Both theories were a great challenge to the scientific community of his time.

Svante August Arrhenius was born on February 19, 1859, in Wijk, near Uppsala, Sweden, as the son of [Page 78]Svante Gustaf Arrhenius, a land surveyer at the University of Uppsala, and Carolina Christina Thunberg. His ancestors were farmers; his uncle became Professor of botany and rector of the Agricultural High School at Ultuna near Uppsala and later Secretary of the Swedish Academy of Agriculture. He originally went to Uppsala University to study chemistry. Finding their standards mediocre, he transferred to Stockholm in 1881, to do research under the physicist Erik Edlund, working initially on electrical polarization and then on the conductivity of solutions.

Arrheniuss doctoral dissertation (1884), titled Recherches sur la conductibilité galvanique des electrolytes [Investigations on the Galvanic Conductivity of Electrolytes] and presented in 1883, described his experimental work on the electrical conductivity of dilute solutions. It also contained a speculative section that set out an early form of his theory that molecules of acids, bases, and salts dissociate into ions when these substances are dissolved in water—in contrast to the notion of Michael Faraday and others that ions are produced only when the electrical current begins to flow.

Later, he proved that electrolytic dissociation influences osmotic pressure, the lowering of the freezing point and increase of the boiling point of solutions containing electrolytes. He also explored connections with biological problems, such as the relationship between toxins and antitoxins, serum therapy, and links to digestion and absorption as well as to the gastric and pancreatic juices. Although it has been modified over time, the importance of electrolytic dissociation theory is widely acknowledged today.

Arrhenius also applied physicochemical principles to the studies of meteorology, cosmology, and biochemistry. Interested in a debate about the cause of the ice ages he speculated that changes in the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere lasting tens of millions of years were the trigger for a substantial change of the surface temperature of the earth. He took note of the Industrial Revolution, then underway, and realized that the amount of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere was increasing. Moreover, he believed carbon dioxide concentrations would continue to increase as the world's consumption of fossil fuels, particularly coal, increased ever more rapidly. He estimated that coal burning would drive a steady rise in CO2 levels of about 50 percent in 3,000 years, leading to a much warmer climate, a prospect he found entirely rosy. He believed that a warmer world would be a positive change and that a warmer earth would be needed to feed the rapidly-increasing population.