This Stunning Chart Helped Uncover Climate Change in 1959

'Oh my god': How a post-doc chemist stumbled on the pattern —and why the Carbon Clock started running backwards this week.
Source: Robert Simmon/NASA
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Spring is in the air, but what is it? The blossoms blossoming? The vernal equinox?

Yes to both, and one more: It's how a young American chemist named Charles David Keeling stumbled upon proof of a climate problem way back in 1959.