Eunice Foote discussed the greenhouse effect in 1856, three years before John Tyndall

Irish physicist John Tyndall is commonly credited with discovering the greenhouse effect, which underpins the science of climate change.

Starting in 1859, he published a series of studies on the way greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide trapped heat in the Earth’s atmosphere.

A recently digitised copy of The American Journal of Science and Arts suggests a woman beat him to it, however.

It includes a presentation by Eunice Foote to a top US science conference in 1856. She describes filling glass jars with water vapour, carbon dioxide and air, and comparing how much they heated up in the sun.

Read the Climate Home story - “Meet the woman who first identified the greenhouse effect.”