Climate Change

How might the Earth’s

temperature and climate
change in the future?
 Climate Change in the Past
• Changes in the earth’s climate are neither
____ nor ________. For example, 40
million years ago Antarctica was ice-free
and covered with a beech forest, and the
global sea level was 230 feet higher than it
is today.
 Climate Change in the Past
• Through the years our climate has been
_________ due to:
– Volcanic emissions
– Changes in solar input
– Tectonic plate movement
– Meteor strikes
– Changes in the length of the earth’s elliptical
orbit
– Changes in the tilt of the earth’s axis as it
rotates around the sun
 Climate Change in the Past
• Through the years our climate has been
changed due to:
– The earth’s axis “wobbles”
– Changes in the sun’s output of energy related
to an 11-year cycle of sun spot activity, and a
22-year cycle of solar magnetic cycles.
 Climate Change in the Past
• Global temperature ______
– Over the past 900,000 years the troposphere
has experienced prolonged periods of global
cooling and global warming. These alternating
cycles of freezing and thawing are known as
glacial and interglacial (between ice ages)
periods.
– The last ice age ended 13,000 years ago.
– For the past 1,000 years temperatures have
remained fairly stable, but began rising in the
last century when the forests began to be
cleared and fossil fuels began to be burned.
 Climate Change in the Past
• We measure past temperatures using
various __________
– Analysis of ____________ in rocks and fossils
(different radioisotopes - parent and daughter
ratio - are formed at different temperatures)
– Plankton and radioisotopes in ocean
_________
– Tiny _______ of ancient atmosphere found in
ice
– Temperature measurements taken at different
depths from ________ drilled in the earth’s
surface.
 Climate Change in the Past
• We measure past temperatures using various
techniques
– ______ from the bottom of lakes
– Tree _______
– Insects, pollen, and minerals found in different layers
of bat ____ deposited in caves 1,000 years ago
– Historical _______
– Since 1861 scientists have been making temperature
_____________ of the atmosphere on land, at sea,
from weather balloons at different altitudes, and now
by infrared sensors on satellites.
The Greenhouse Effect
 The Natural Greenhouse Effect
• Four major factors shape the earth’s climate:
– The ___.
– The greenhouse effect warms the earth’s lower
troposphere and surface because of the
presence of ___________ ______.
– _______ store CO2 and heat, evaporate and
receive water, and move stored heat to other
parts of the world.
– Natural _______ process through water vapor in
the troposphere (heat rises).
 The Greenhouse Effect
• Greenhouse gases strongly absorb and emit
infrared energy.
• The main greenhouse gases are water vapor,
carbon dioxide, and methane, nitrous oxide
• Greenhouse gases act like a blanket - they keep
the lower atmosphere warmer, and the upper
atmosphere cooler.
• The Earth’s natural greenhouse effect “wants” to
make the Earth’s surface unbearably hot (140°F),
but the cooling effects of weather prevent most of
that warming from occurring.
 The Greenhouse Effect
• Weather’s cooling is accomplished when warm
air rises and cold air sinks.
• Bottom line: the purpose of weather is to move
____ from where there is more, to where there is
less. Wind, clouds, rain, every weather pattern
has this as its aim.
• So warm air is moved either higher in the
___________, or higher in ________.
 Heat Transfer
• Heat transferred to the air is either sensible (an
increase in air temperature) or latent (water
vapor evaporated from the surface).
• Latent heat loss by the Earth’s surface through
evaporation is the dominant mechanism for
cooling the Earth.
• If neither water nor vegetation is present, then all
of the sun’s energy is turned into sensible heat.
This is what causes the “_____ ____ ______
effect.”
 Heat Transfer
• Warm air is ______ somewhere, and cold
air is _______ somewhere else.
• This sets up convection _____.
• This is where the Coriolis Effect is seen.
Remember, in the Northern Hemisphere
the air moves to the right. In the Southern
Hemisphere the air moves to the left.
 Major Greenhouse Gases
• The major greenhouse gases in the lower
atmosphere are _____ vapor, carbon
_______, _______, and _______ oxide.
– These gases have always been present in the
earth’s troposphere in varying concentrations.
– Fluctuations in the concentrations of these gases,
plus changes in solar output are the major factors
causing the changes in tropospheric temperature
over the past 400,000 years.
Composition of the Earth’s
Atmosphere

Carbon Dioxide = .03% of the Earth’s Atmosphere

Amount of Manmade CO2
 Major Greenhouse
Gases
• Increases in average
concentrations of three
greenhouse gases in the
troposphere between 1860
and 2004, is mostly due to
fossil fuel _________,
____________, and
___________.
 Sun

Troposphere

CO2 removal
Cooling by plants and
Greenhouse soil Heat and
from
gases organisms CO2 removal
Warming increase CO2 emissions
from from land
Aerosols decrease clearing, fires, Heat and
and decay CO2 emissions

Ice and snow cover

Shallow ocean
Land and soil biota

Long-term
storage

Deep ocean
Global Warming
 Global Warming and Climate
Change
• Global warming is _________ than global
climate change. Warming refers to a
temperature increase in the troposphere
that can cause climate change. Climate
change refers to changes in ____ aspect
of the climate including temperature,
precipitation, storm intensity, and storm
patterns.
 Global Warming
• The major concern in global warming is
that _________ burning of fossil fuels is
slowly increasing the carbon dioxide
content of the atmosphere. We are
supposedly making the “blanket” slightly
denser. Therefore not as much infrared
energy is being allowed to escape to outer
space. This means more energy is coming
in than going out and we are heating up.
 Signs the Troposphere is
Warming
• In 1988 the UN and the World
Meteorological Organization established
the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change). It is composed of 2,000
climate experts from 70 nations.
• In 2001, the IPCC claimed it is very likely
(90-99% confidence level) that the
troposphere is warming.
 Signs the Troposphere is
Warming
• The IPCC claims:
– The earth is the hottest it has been in 400
years
– It is hotter than it has been in the last 1,000
years
– The 10 warmest years since 1861 have
occurred since 1990
– Arctic temperatures are rising twice as fast as
those in the rest of the world.
 Signs the Troposphere is
Warming
• The IPCC claims:
– Glaciers and floating sea ice in some parts of
the world are melting and shrinking at an
increasing rate
– Warmer temperatures in Alaska and Russia
are melting permafrost (which releases more
CO2 and CH4)
– The world’s average sea level rose 4-8 inches
during the last century because of melting ice
and the expansion of the ocean water as its
temperature increases.
 Additional Considerations
• Oceans have absorbed 50% of the CO2
released since the Industrial Revolution,
but increasing ocean temperatures, and
increasing ocean acidity cause the oceans
to absorb less CO2. So the oceans may
not be able to save us.

QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
 Additional Considerations
• Cloud cover is still an uncertainty. Low
clouds cool us, high clouds warm us.
Some think that airline contrails (which
become high clouds) may account for as
much as half of the warming we have
experienced.

QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
 Additional Considerations
• Light-colored outdoor air pollution like
aerosols (microscopic droplets and solid
particles) can slow global warming.
• Dark-colored outdoor air pollution like soot
cause increased warming.

QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
 Using Mathematical Models
• Scientists use ___________ ______
(computer models) to predict what the
future will look like
– These models are based on certain
assumptions and interactions.
– These models are only as good as the
assumptions built into them (GIGO)
– Coupled General Circulation Models
(CGCMs) couple, or combine, the effects of
the atmosphere and the oceans on climate.
 Skeptics

- There are scientists who are skeptics and

disagree with the findings of the IPCC.
Therefore the idea of a scientific _________
is _________.
• Some believe we don’t know enough about how
the earth works to make assumptions.
• Some have a conflict of interest because they work
for oil companies.
April 1975 - Newsweek
April 1975 - Newsweek
 Al Gore and A.I.T.
• Al Gore won a Noble Peace Prize for his
documentary “An Inconvenient Truth”
• He also won an Academy Award for “An
Inconvenient Truth”.
• But . . .
– Gore’s mansion uses 20 times the energy of the national average.
– Gore’s zinc mine has received citations for polluting the nearby
creek with its tailings.
– Gore is heavily invested in companies that stand to profit
tremendously if any carbon offset emission legislation is passed.
– Gore has made up to $100,000 for delivering his lecture on
environmental issues.
 “Climategate”
• Phil Jones, Professor at the
University of East Anglia’s Climatic
Research Unit - the organization
that supplies climate data to the
IPCC and the US Government.
• On 2/15/10 he claimed that he
“lost” the data for the hockey stick,
there has been no “statistically
significant” warming since 1995, QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.

and that warming periods have

occurred before, but NOT because
of man-made causes. (1910-1940
and 1975-1998).
• He is accused of “scientific fraud”
for deliberately suppressing
information and for refusing to
share vital data with critics.
 What We Know For Sure
• Mankind ___ producing carbon dioxide as a
result of our use of a wide variety of fuels, from
coal and petroleum to natural gas and wood.
• The carbon dioxide content of the global
atmosphere has been slowly __________. We
are now 40% of our way to doubling the pre-
industrial concentrations. (Though this is only a
1% increase in the overall natural greenhouse
effect - since carbon dioxide is such a small
percentage of the atmosphere).
 What We Know For Sure
• Calculations tell us the doubling of carbon
dioxide will result in a __°F rise in surface
temperature (with no other environmental
changes) over the next 100 years.