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Climate Change Myths and Educational Resources

Climate Change Myths and Educational Resources. 2010 Satellites Educators Conference. Ray Bradley, Univ. Mass. Amherst. Increasing Disbelief of Global Warming. Myth 1. No Scientific Consensus About Global Warming. Most scientists agree World is warming & will warm

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Climate Change Myths and Educational Resources

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  1. Climate Change Myths and Educational Resources 2010 Satellites Educators Conference

  2. Ray Bradley, Univ. Mass. Amherst.

  3. Increasing Disbelief of Global Warming

  4. Myth 1. No Scientific Consensus About Global Warming • Most scientists agree • World is warming & will warm • Warming mostly due to human activity (burning fossil fuel - oil, coal and gas – and destroying forests) • Projections of rising temperature, grave enough to warrant global action http://www.sierraclub.ca/national/programs/atmosphere-energy/climate-change/cc-ten-myths.pdf What Global Warming? I Can’t See It.

  5. Myth 1 continued. American Scientists Don’t Buy It • 19,000 SIGNED A PETITION AGAINST IPCC’S VIEWS AND THE NEED FOR THE KYOTO PROTOCOL • Petition sponsored by Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine and sent out before Kyoto Protocol. • www.huffingtonpost.com www.petitionproject.org

  6. Not everyone believes temperatures are rising

  7. Myth 2. Temperature Increase is Good • Small average global temperature changes lead to melting of caps. Small temperature decrease of about 5 oC led to last ice-age. • Water cycle will be impacted. Droughts and floods intensify. Higher temperatures increase evaporation rates from surface. • Climate change occurring rapidly. Plants won’t be able to adapt or ‘migrate’ north (Science Magazine). http://www.sierraclub.ca/national/programs/atmosphere-energy/climate-change/cc-ten-myths.pdf Bates, et al. (2008) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, WG II (2007).

  8. Myth 3. Because Carbon Dioxide Levels Are Low They Cannot Not Greatly Influence Global Temperatures • CO2 occurs in very small or trace concentrations (ppmv = parts per million by volume) in atmosphere. • Since 1950, CO2 levels in atmosphere have gone up to about 370 ppmv – Nature

  9. Why Temperatures Increase-- Greenhouse Gases • Allow sunlight to enter atmosphere freely • mostly in visible light wavelengths • Sunlight hits surface and reradiated to space • As longer wavelengths of infrared radiation • Greenhouse gases absorb reradiated infrared radiation • Heat is reradiated to Earth’s surface.

  10. Major Greenhouse Gases • Air made of mostly oxygen (O2) and nitrogen (N2) - two atoms of same element share electrons • Infrared (heat) energy radiated up from surface can be absorbed by these molecules, but not very well www.chemistryland.com/.../Exp4Biodiesel.html

  11. Dancing Molecules and Heat Rays! Carbon dioxide (CO2) and water vapor (H2O) are different! They have many more ways to vibrate and rotate, so are good at absorbing and emitting infrared (heat) radiation O C O O O N N O H H Molecules that have many ways to wiggle are called “Greenhouse” molecules Absorption spectrum of CO2 was measured by John Tyndall in 1863 Scott Denning Monfort, Colorado State University

  12. The Greenhouse Effect

  13. Are Greenhouse Gases Bad? • No, not in excessive amounts • Gases needed to heat atmosphere • Without greenhouse gases, atmosphere would be 54oF colder • If too many gases, atmosphere heats up too much (i.e., Venus)

  14. Myth 4. Climate Change is All Within Natural Variability • Proxy data from ice cores & tree rings from ancient forests give baseline temperature trends and reveal • Temperatures are higher than past 1000 years. • CO2 atmospheric concentration has not been this high for 420 000 years. Source: IPPC. 2007. IPCC Fourth Assessment Report.

  15. Myth 5. Ozone hole causes global warming because it lets in more radiation. • Thinning of stratospheric ozone layer caused largely by long-lived chlorine and bromine compounds,such as CFCs and halons, • Restrictions on CFC leads to closing of ozone hole. Skeptics believe this will decrease global warming NASA

  16. Myth 5 Continued • Ozone hole=more incoming solar radiation=more warming? • Ozone allows visible light to pass through it (but not ultraviolet light). Visible light from the sun is what causes the surface of the Earth to warm in the first place. • Greenhouse gases absorb radiation from Earth’s surface to warm planet. http://exp-studies.tor.ec.gc.ca/e/ozone/OzoneDepletionClimateChange.pdf IPCC

  17. Myth 6. The Climate Models Aren’t Very Good At Projecting The Future • Must rely on models. Can’t manipulate one variable related to atmosphere and see what happens. • Graph shows match between observed data and model using a factors including natural ones (volcanoes, solar radiation changes, etc.) and human induced (fuel burning, deforestation, etc.).. Source: IPCC, Working group I, Summary for Policy Makers (SPM), Third Assessment Report (TAR), page 11.

  18. Myth 7. The Observed Warming Is All Due To Solar Radiation Variability, Not Human Activity • According to IPCC, the warming effect due to increases of greenhouse gases is estimated to be more than 8 times greater than effect of changes in solar radiation.

  19. Myth 8. Satellite Measurements Have Not Shown The Warming Trends • Satellite temperature records show less warming than surface temperature data or even a cooling trend. • A National Academy of Sciences ( 2000) -- satellite data needed to be adjusted for some measurement and calibration problems. • Adjustments bring surface and satellite records into better agreement, both showing a warming trend. • Surface thermometers measure air temperature at Earth's surface. Satellites take temperatures of different slices of the atmosphere, including the upper atmosphere -- where the depletion of the ozone layer has had a cooling effect -- lowering the overall temperature trends observed from satellites. NOAA

  20. Myth 9. Scientists/Environmentalists are exaggerating in order to get more funding

  21. Sample Resources • http://climate.nasa.gov/ • http://mynasadata.larc.nasa.gov/ • http://www.climate.gov/ • http://www.ucar.edu/learn/ • http://essea.strategies.org/ • http://www.climatechangeeducation.org/k-12/index.html • http://www.sustainer.org/tools_resources/climatebathtubsim.html • http://www.earthday.net/footprint/flash.html • AMS Climate Course • http://www.dlese.org/library/index.jsp

  22. To overturn the world economy based on the musings of a few idiot leftist scientists is just stupid, that’s what Global Warming is all about. -Rush Limbaugh-

  23. Questions

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