The Global Warming Debate

AIMS Understand some of the scientific arguments from both sides of the Climate Change debate

Appreciate that science often progresses through dispute, conflict and argumentation rather than through general agreement
Use Toulmins Argument Pattern (TAP) to construct convincing arguments

GLOSSARY
Albedo The fraction of solar radiation reflected by a surface or object, often expressed as a percentage. Snow covered surfaces have a high albedo; the albedo of soils ranges from high to low; vegetation covered surfaces and oceans have a low albedo. The Earth's albedo varies mainly through varying cloudiness, snow, ice, leaf area and land cover changes. Anthropogenic Made by people or resulting from human activities. Usually used in the context of emissions that are produced as a result of human activities Chlorofluorocarbons Greenhouse gases covered under the 1987 Montreal Protocol and used for refrigeration, air conditioning, packaging, insulation, solvents, or aerosol propellants. Since they are not destroyed in the lower atmosphere, CFCs drift into the upper atmosphere where, given suitable conditions, they break down ozone. As ozone depletes, more harmful UV rays reach earths surface. CFCs are being replaced by other compounds, Climate Feedback When the result of an initial process triggers changes in a second process that in turn influences the initial one. A positive feedback intensifies the original process, and a negative feedback reduces it. See climate, climate change. Climate Lag The delay that occurs in climate change as a result of some factor that changes only very slowly. For example, the effects of releasing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere may not be known for some time because a large fraction is dissolved in the ocean and only released to the atmosphere many years later. Forcing is a measure of how internal or external factors affect the Earths energy balance and hence its climate patterns. Think of the temperature being forced up or down. Internal forcing includes greenhouse gases, El Nio and volcanic eruptions. External forcing includes solar fluctuations and cosmic rays

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GLOSSARY
Global Dimming A worldwide decline, during the last few decades, of the intensity of the sunlight reaching the Earth's surface, caused by particulate air pollution. Such dimming has a dampening effect on global warming.

Holocene The geologic epoch (distinctive period of time) extending from the end of the last glaciation, 10 000 years ago, to the present.
Ice Core A cylindrical section of ice removed from a glacier or an ice sheet in order to study climate patterns of the past. By performing chemical analyses on the air trapped in the ice, scientists can estimate the percentage of carbon dioxide and other trace gases in the atmosphere at a given time.

IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Milankovitch cycles Variations in the Earth's eccentricity (see above), axial tilt (obliquity), and precession (see below) comprise the three dominant cycles, collectively known as the Milankovitch Cycles. Milankovitch cycles appear to influence the timing of when large continental ice sheets advance and retreat on Earth. Named after Serbian civil engineer and mathematician Milutin Milankovi. Proxy When you cant measure the temperature directly, such as the 1.5 million years ago (because there were no thermometers back then!), its possible to measure another property which gives an indirect measure of what the temperature might have been. Such as using fossilized tree ring or ice core data. These are then called temperature proxies. Troposphere The lowest part of the atmosphere from the surface to about 10 km in altitude in midlatitudes (ranging from 9 km in high latitudes to 16 km in the tropics on average) where clouds and "weather" phenomena occur. In the troposphere temperatures generally decrease with height.

Approximate contributions to the overall Greenhouse Effect

A GWP is not usually calculated for water vap Water vapour has a significant influence with to absorbing infrared radiation (which is the g house effect); however its concentration in the atmosphere mainly depends on air temperatur there is no possibility to directly influence atmospheric water vapour concentration, the G level for water vapour is not calculated