The greenhouse effect is the process by which absorption and emission of infrared radiation by gases in a planet's atmosphere warm its lower atmosphere and surface. It was proposed by Joseph Fourier in 1824, discovered in 1860 by John Tyndall,[59] was first investigated quantitatively by Svante Arrhenius in 1896,[60] and was developed in the 1930s through 1960s by Guy Stewart Callendar.[61]