Eunice Newton Foote: The woman who discovered the greenhouse effect

 Eunice Newton Foote demonstrated how gas tubes heated up when exposed to sunlight in a study presented in 1856, but the relevance of her work was not recognized at the time.

The subject of today's Google Doodle is Eunice Newton Foote, a key role in the women's rights movements and the discoverer of the greenhouse effect.

John Tyndall, a scientist, is frequently credited with discovering the greenhouse effect. Tyndall conducted several experiments in 1859 to study how heat influenced air. But in 1856, two years before Tyndall's experiments began, Foote's work was presented at the 10th annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, according to a record found by amateur historian Raymond Sorenson in 2011.

The paper discussed Foote's experiments looking at how tubes containing various gases, such as oxygen, air, hydrogen, and carbon dioxide, warmed when exposed to sunshine. It is also the first instance of a physics article written by a female scientist. She concluded that carbonic acid gas, which is mainly composed of carbon dioxide, is where the sun's rays have the greatest impact.

She continued by speculating that "our earth would have a high temperature if that gas were in its atmosphere."

Theresa Newton and Isaac Newton Jr., a distant relative of the well-known scientist, were the parents of Foote when he was born in 1819. Foote was a well-known activist in the US women's rights movement who promoted the right to vote for all people among other things. She was one of the founding members of the Declaration of Sentiments, a manifesto. This was written at the first women's rights convention, which was organized by women and held at Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848.

Foote conducted tests to determine which gases could generate static electricity a few years following her 1856 trials, however, she didn't engage in significant scientific study for a very long time after that. Before her passing in 1888, she also applied for several patents, including one for a cooking stove with a thermostat.