Talk:Svante Arrhenius

Family relation to Greta Thunberg (link in the See also section)

Greta Thumberg what? What is the link? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.91.51.235 (talk) 16:41, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

From what I've read, Olof Thunberg (Greta Thunberg's grandfather) named his son Svante Thunberg (Greta's father) after his own grandfather, Svante Arrhenius (Greta's great-great-grandfather). 2601:1C1:8A00:1700:DDBF:A05:8F92:1 (talk) 20:44, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

The same claim is made on the talk page Talk:Olof Thunberg. If true, given Arrhenius' contribution to the understanding of the Greenhouse effect and his great-great-granddaughter's efforts to mitigate it, the familial link should be mentioned. JezGrove (talk) 21:51, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

We should mention that they were on opposite sides of the issue. Arrhenius famously predicted that climate change from rising CO2 levels would be very beneficial, and Greta takes the opposite position. (Thus far, the evidence supports Arrhenius.) NCdave (talk) 04:41, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Greta Thunberg is not descended from Arrhenius (and neither was her grandfather Olof), so you will find no reliable source claiming she is.
From what I can see on the genealogy website I link to below, Greta's great-great-grandmother was a 2nd cousin of Arrhenius, so they are descended from common ancestors.
I don't know though if there are any WP:RELIABLE sources for stating the above in an article.

Arrhenius's mother was born Carolina Christina Thunberg. Here is a genealogy page for Carolina Christina's grandfather Petter Johansson, who together with his wife appears to be the last common ancestor of Arrhenius and Greta:

• https://www.geni.com/people/Petter-Johansson/6000000087609005072

According to that genealogy site, Svante Arrhenius's 2nd cousin (on the branch of Petter's daughter Catharina Elisabeth Pettersdotter) Augusta Margareta Thunberg was the great-grandmother of Greta's father Svante, who in the Thunberg family's book Our House Is on Fire is said to be named after his distant relative Arrhenius. --Fyrisdal (talk) 17:26, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Red links in the Marriages and family section

Looking at the Swedish article sv:Anna-Lisa Arrhenius-Wold, I don't see Arrhenius-Wold fulfilling English Wp's WP:NACADEMIC criteria, and hence per the red link guideline there should be no red link for her.

Svante Wold may be notable only for being a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences. Gustaf Arrhenius is more clearly notable: a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Guggenheim Fellow, and other things. Olof Arrhenius should be notable for phosphate analysis in archaeology (in addition to membership in two royal academies). --Fyrisdal (talk) 16:23, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

I agree with you--Htmlzycq (talk) 18:04, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Why was there opposition to his promotions?

On more than one occasion it's noted that there was strong opposition to Arrhenius's promotion to an important position. Were there particular things about Arrhenius that tended to invite opposition, whether professional, personal, or both? TooManyFingers (talk) 17:12, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

The pronunciation of his name

What is the point of showing a non-Swedish pronunciation of his name? Its a Swedish name, so its pronounced in Swedish. I guess that the first pronunciation shown in the article is supposed to be English, but his name is not an English word, so I don't understand how could there even be consensus on what a correct English pronunciation would be. If Wikipedia insists on having made up pronunciations of non-English names, could the actual (in this case Swedish) pronunciation at least be shown first? Or could the first pronunciation just be removed, as there aren't made up pronunciations in the articles for Euler and Gauss either? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.233.143.158 (talk) 10:53, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Formula for the Augmentation of temperature has issues

This page mentions a formula that gives an augmentation of temperature but it does not express what the augmentation is. Is it a percentage increase or an absolute increase? Initially, I guessed the former. Chemistry is not my speciality. Having worked through an example it appears to be an absolute value.

It would be helpful to have a worked example to explain the meaning of Augmentation of temperature start temperature change in CO₂ and end temperature as calculated using the formula.

history.com states Svante Arrhenius predicted that a halving of CO₂ would reduce the global temperature by 5 degrees Celsius and doubling of CO₂ would increase the global temperature by 5 degrees.

Working through that example I get different results.

5.35 * ln(2) = 3.708 celsius or 6.675...degrees Fahrenheit. This does not equal 5 as would be expected from the text on history.com.

5.35 * ln(1/2) = -3.708... this also does not equal -5 as would be expected from the text.

The alpha would need to be 7.21 to get an answer of 5.

This implies the text on history.com is wrong or the formula here is wrong or the value of alpha is wrong.

As a hypothesis, 7.21 may be the combined alpha for both CO₂ and the water as produced when burning carbon.

But clarification is needed.

The comment on his actual predictions near the end of the article say a reduction of 0.62–0.55 would decrease temperatures by 4–5 °C (Celsius), 0.62–0.55 what? similarly we need units or percentage sign or whatever.

The formula quoted must be a rule of thumb as if the start value is zero it ln(infinity) is still infinity. And we know that would be wrong.

An explanation of how this formula used to make those predictions differs from the one quoted would be welcome. Robin Murison (talk) 10:46, 3 February 2025 (UTC)