Climate Change and Ozone Depletion: Understanding Past and Future Changes

1. Chapter 20 Climate Change and Ozone Depletion

2. Chapter Overview Questions • How have the earth’s temperature and climate changed in the past? • How might the earth’s temperature change in the future? • What factors influence the earth’s average temperature? • What are some possible beneficial and harmful effects of a warmer earth?

3. Chapter Overview Questions (cont’d) • How can we slow projected increases in the earth’s temperature or adapt to such changes? • How have human activities depleted ozone in the stratosphere, and why should we care?

4. Core Case Study: Studying a Volcano to Understand Climate Change • NASA scientist correctly predicted that the 1991 Philippines explosion would cool the average temperature of the earth by 0.5Co over a 15 month period and then return to normal by 1995. Figure 20-1

5. Core Case Study: Studying a Volcano to Understand Climate Change • The NASA model was correct. • The success convince scientists and policy makers that climate model projections should be taken seriously. • Other climate models have shown that global temperatures are likely to rise several degrees during this century.

6. The Greenhouse Effect • The physics of the greenhouse effect is just like what happens in a greenhouse that traps heat (or a car in the parking lot). • The glass (the atmosphere) allows visible light to pass through. • The visible light is converted into infrared light (heat) when it hits the ground (or the seats of your car) • But the glass (and certain molecules in the atmosphere) does not allow all of the heat to escape.

7. The Greenhouse Effect: Predicted Decades Ago

8. The Natural Greenhouse Effect • Three major factors shape the earth’s climate: the sun, the atmosphere, and the oceans. • Greenhouse effect warms the earth’s lower troposphere and surface because of the presence of greenhouse gases. • Oceans store CO2 and heat, evaporate and receive water, and currents move stored heat to other parts of the world. • Heat moves through the atmosphere via convection currents, the jet stream, wind, etc.

9. Major Greenhouse Gases • The major greenhouse gases in the lower atmosphere are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. • These gases have always been present in the earth’s troposphere in varying concentrations. • Fluctuations in these gases, plus changes in solar output are the major factors causing the changes in tropospheric temperature over the past 400,000 years.

10. Major Greenhouse Gases • Increases in average concentrations of three greenhouse gases in the troposphere between 1860 and 2004, mostly due to fossil fuel burning, deforestation, and agriculture. Figure 20-5

11. Fig. 20-5a, p. 467

12. 30 times better at trapping heat than CO2! Fig. 20-5b, p. 467

13. Fig. 20-5c, p. 467

14. CLIMATE CHANGE AND HUMAN ACTIVITIES • Evidence that the earth’s troposphere is warming, mostly because of human actions: • The 20th century was the hottest century in the past 1000 years. • Since 1900, the earth’s average tropospheric temperature has risen 0.6 C°. • Over the past 50 years, Arctic temperatures have risen almost twice as fast as those in the rest of the world. • Glaciers and floating sea ice are melting and shrinking at increasing rates.

15. CLIMATE CHANGE AND HUMAN ACTIVITIES • Warmer temperatures in Alaska, Russia, and the Arctic are melting permafrost releasing more CO2 and CH4 into the troposphere – positive feedback loop! • During the last century, the world’s sea level rose by 10-20 cm, mostly due to runoff from melting and land-based ice and the expansion of ocean water as temperatures rise.

16. The Scientific Consensus about Future Climate Change • There is strong evidence that human activities will play an important role in changing the earth’s climate during this century. • Coupled General Circulation Models (CGCMs) couple, or combine, the effects of the atmosphere and the oceans on climate.

17. CGCM of the Earth’s Climate • Simplified model of major processes that interact to determine the average temperature and greenhouse gas content of the troposphere. Figure 20-6

18. Sun CO2 removal by plants and soil organisms Greenhouse gases Cooling from increase Heat and CO2 removal CO2 emissions from land cleaning, fires, and decay Warming from decrease Aerosols Heat and CO2 emissions Long-term storage Troposphere Ice and snow cover Shallow ocean Land and soil biotoa Natural and human emissions Deep ocean Stepped Art Fig. 20-6, p. 469

19. The Scientific Consensus about Future Climate Change • Measured and projected changes in the average temperature of the atmosphere. Figure 20-7

20. Fig. 20-7, p. 470

21. 636 Number of articles in the popular press discussing global warming, 1995-2005 Percent of the popular articles expressing doubt about global warming 53% 928 Number of peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals dealing with climate change, 1995-2005 Percent of the scientific articles expressing doubt about the causes of global warming 0%

22. Censoring of scientific report on climate change by the Bush administration

24. All Nobel Laureates!

25. Do We Know What Will Happen Due to Greenhouse Gas Emissions? • We can’t know with absolute certainty what will happen, but we can make intelligent predictions based on studies of the past climate. • We do know that we are conducting a global experiment by moving carbon from long-term underground storage as fossil fuels into the atmosphere. • This shift in the carbon cycle should theoretically result in a warming of the planet’s average temperature, but the effects on any one day or in any one location are more variable. • Perhaps the phrases “climate change,” or even “global weirding” would more accurately reflect expected results of greenhouse gas increases. • The precautionary principle suggests that even if we don’t know the exact results, we would be wise to limit our contributions of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere!

26. “The Keeling Curve” Pre-industrial CO2 = 280 ppm 1958 CO2 = 315 ppm 2005 CO2 = 380 ppm 2015 CO2 = 401ppm

27. PAST CLIMATE AND THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT • Over the past 900,000 years, the troposphere has experienced prolonged periods of global cooling and global warming. • For the past 1,000 years, temperatures have remained fairly stable but began to rise during the last century.

28. PAST CLIMATE AND THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT Figure 20-2

29. Average temperature over past 900,000 years Average surface temperature (°C) Thousands of years ago Fig. 20-2a, p. 465

30. Temperature change over past 22,000 years Agriculture established Temperature change (C°) End of last ice age Average temperature over past 10,000 years = 15°C (59°F) Years ago Fig. 20-2c, p. 465

31. Temperature change over past 1,000 years Temperature change (C°) Year Fig. 20-2d, p. 465

32. Average temperature over past 130 years Average surface temperature (°C) Year Fig. 20-2b, p. 465

33. How Do We Know What Temperatures Were in the Past? • Scientists analyze tiny air bubbles trapped in ice cores learn about past: • troposphere composition. • temperature trends. • greenhouse gas concentrations. • solar,snowfall, and forest fire activity. Figure 20-3

34. How Do We Know What Temperatures Were in the Past? • In 2005, an ice core showed that CO2 levels in the troposphere are the highest they have been in 650,000 years. Figure 20-4

35. Concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (ppm) Carbon dioxide Variation of temperature (C°) from current level Temperature change End of last ice age Thousands of years before present Fig. 20-4, p. 466

36. 1000 years of Northern Hemisphere Temperatures (Compared to the average temp between 1960 and 1990)

37. 150 years of Northern Hemisphere Temperatures (Compared to the average temp between 1960 and 1990)

39. Closer to Home: Temp Trends @ Tahoe The average minimum air temperature now exceeds the freezing temperature of water, which points to more rain and less snow, as well as earlier snowmelt. Skiers/Riders :>( • About 80 days below freezing in 1910s, only about 55 in 2010s. • Since 1961, peak snowmelt has shifted earlier in the year by 2 weeks. Max. Temp. up by almost 2 degrees F Min. Temp. up by more than 4 degrees F These data have been smoothed by using a two-year running average to remove daily and seasonal fluctuations.

40. How Would You Vote? To conduct an instant in-class survey using a classroom response system, access “JoinIn Clicker Content” from the PowerLecture main menu for Living in the Environment. • Do you believe that we will experience significant global warming during this century? • a. No. Claims for significant global warming during this century are based on unreliable climate models. • b. Yes. Even with the uncertainties, the models still indicate significant global warming during this century.

41. Why Should We Be Concerned about a Warmer Earth? • A rapid increase in the temperature of the troposphere during this century would give us little time to deal with its harmful effects. • As a prevention strategy scientists urge to cut global CO2 emissions in half over the next 50 years. • This could prevent changes in the earth’s climate system that could last for tens of thousands of years.

42. FACTORS AFFECTING THE EARTH’S TEMPERATURE • Some factors can amplify (positive feedback) and some can dampen (negative feedback) projected global warming. • There is uncertainty about how much CO2 and heat the oceans can remove from the troposphere and how long the heat and CO2 might remain there. • Warmer temperatures create more clouds that could warm or cool the troposphere.

43. Effects of Higher CO2 Levels on Photosynthesis • Increased CO2 in the troposphere can increase plant photosynthesis (PS) but: • The increase in PS would slow as the plants reach maturity. • Carbon stored by the plants would be returned to the atmosphere as CO2 when the plants die. • Increased PS decreases the amount of carbon stored in the soil. • Tree growth may temporarily slow CO2 emissions in the S. Hemisphere but is likely to increase CO2 emissions in the N. Hemisphere.

44. FACTORS AFFECTING THE EARTH’S TEMPERATURE • Aerosol and soot pollutants produced by human activities can warm or cool the atmosphere, but such effects will decrease with any decline in outdoor air pollution. • Warmer air can release methane gas stored in bogs, wetlands, and tundra soils and accelerate global warming.

45. EFFECTS OF GLOBAL WARMING • A warmer climate would have beneficial and harmful effects but poor nations in the tropics would suffer the most. • Some of the world’s floating ice and land-based glaciers are slowly melting and are helping warm the troposphere by reflecting less sunlight back into space.

46. Global Warming Impacts are Unequally Distributed Across the Globe

47. EFFECTS OF GLOBAL WARMING • Between 1979 and 2005, average Arctic sea ice dropped 20% (as shown in blue hues above). Figure 20-8

48. Russia * North pole Greenland Alaska (U.S.) Canada Fig. 20-8, p. 474

50. Positive Feedback Loop from Melting Sea Ice