Beyond Google: my afternoon trawling Trove for the first mentions of climate change

What happens when you decide to search the National Library database for historical references to global warming? It goes further back than you think

Science has uncovered indisputable evidence that the level of our oceans is rising. This is the result of a sudden and unexpected increase in our planet's northern temperatures. Ice masses are melting rapidly away. If the rate of thawing continues, civilisation near the sea may be submerged and profound changes be wrought in climate, soil, sea and the race itself. The whole face of the earth may be moving towards a vast transformation."

That's quite an opening paragraph, but it's not mine. It belongs a story titled Sea Levels Rising" published in the Central Queensland Herald on Thursday. Thursday 30 September 1948.