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INSIDE THE SPHERE
BY JOHN SODEAU
ILLUSTRATED BY NICHOLAS McGUIRE
A SET OF SCIENCE FACT AND FACTION
BOOKS ON THE ENVIRONMENT
FOR TRANSITION YEAR STUDENTS
John Sodeau
Book 2
Illustrated by Nicholas McGuire
Climate Change
Weather is the mix of measurable events, such as cloudiness, humidity, temperature and pressure that happens each day in our atmosphere. From this
information and computer models it is possible to forecast whether, say, a storm is likely to happen in a certain region over the next few days. Weather is, of course, not the same at different locations over Planet Earth at the same time. Contrast for yourself what the weather is like today (or yesterday) in Buenos Aires compared to Oslo compared to Nairobi.
Climate is the average weather in a place as recorded over many years. As we all know too well in Ireland the weather can change in just a few hours
(or even minutes). In contrast the climate takes hundreds, thousands, even millions of years to change. And our climate is changing. So with respect
to the average global temperature for the years between 1961 and 1990, Planet Earth is now in 2012, on average, about 0.5 OC warmer. The problems
and debates about the issues associated with climate change arise because there are difficulties in predicting an exact atmospheric response to the
many changing stimuli that are possible, especially the impact of human activities.
Climate change has particular impacts on our Environment. These include effects such as clean water availability, “desertification” and loss of biodiversity. But it can all become very complex e.g. forestry where higher mean annual temperatures, altered precipitation patterns and more frequent and
extreme weather events can lead to “stressing” and subsequent forest loss. This is important because trees and their leaves in forests trap and store
carbon dioxide, a chemical that plays a major role in climate change. These different climate effects can have large impacts on us particularly regarding levels of food production, drought, polar ice-cap melting and also our own security and safety. Therefore trying to reduce, reverse or at least stabilize our climate is probably the most important challenge that we all face.
John Sodeau
Book 2
Illustrated by Nicholas McGuire
The Greenhouse Effect
Planet Earth has a baseline Greenhouse effect due to trace amounts of H2O and CO2 that naturally occur. Over the past million years the global mean
temperature has cycled regularly between glacial and interglacial periods, with global mean temperatures around 10 OC and 14 OC respectively. These
temperatures track with the CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere at those times cycling between 0.020% and 0.027 % respectively. The Greenhouse effect occurs because certain atmospheric molecules (of which H2O and CO2 are the most important) allow wavelengths capable of photosynthesis through
the atmosphere but trap outgoing infrared (IR) wavelengths emitted by Earth. Some of this radiation is then returned to the Earth’s surface causing it to
warm up. The effect is necessary to maintain the Earth's climate, surface temperature and liquid state of water in the biosphere on land, rivers and oceans.
The natural warming effect of our atmosphere can be understood by thinking of it as a moth-eaten blanket (but actually consisting of water vapour plus
small amounts of carbon dioxide gas). The holes in it stop “overheating”. But if much carbon dioxide is added the blanket is made thicker and therefore
more warming. Also the “holes” can be filled in by chemicals that absorb IR radiation at wavelengths different from water or carbon dioxide. Good examples of such molecules are methane (CH4), the chlorofluorocarbons and nitrous oxide (N2O). The enhanced Greenhouse effect refers to the augmentation
of the natural vapours and gases by human (anthropogenic) activities. In fact the effect was predicted in 1896 by a scientist called Svante Arrhenius who
wrote: “I have calculated the mean alteration of our temperature that would follow if the quantity of carbonic acid varied from its present value to a dou-
bled value: it would be 5-6 OC.” Today we know from empirical evidence, looking at the differences in climate during ice ages and interglacial periods
that a doubling of CO2 leads to an increase in temperature in the range between 2.5 to 3.5 OC. With the inclusion of other Greenhouse gases it is likely that
the increase will be about 4 OC by 2080. On the other hand processes related to the formation of clouds, snow and ice may lead to a cooling effect because
of their reflective properties. Including all relevant features in a predictive computer model is very difficult currently and so there is still a need for dedicated research and observation programmes to obtain a better understanding of each factor. The price of this research is surely worth paying if the potential cost is worldwide food shortages, drought in some places, violent storms in others and the ice-caps melting. But we need citizens to recognise that
there is a real problem facing us as is apparent from the science that is already known. International legislators need to act now before it is too late!
What are the differences between
weather, climate and meteorology?
Wind-blow Air Boat
Before they started work, Midge told Spring some history
about the Anthro: “When we all slid down the rainbow coloured glass rod, most of us landed in this place but we didn’t
know if anyone had ended up anywhere else”. He paused and
then went on “Some probably drowned in the Great Slide because many of us still have family members and friends that
are missing”. He paused again and then said “I lost my brother and sister, Mario and Maria
and I miss them both a lot.”
It
stared
Spring was upset by this and replied “It’s not hopeless,
withsomewhere”.
a loud
Midge, they could still be alive
“Yes maybe they are…..but even though we’ve used our wind
-blow water boats and air boats, as well as our balloon flyers
to find out if anyone else survived, we’ve had no luck in rescuing anybody yet” he said with a tear in his eye. Then he got
quite angry: “I should be doing more but first of all I was too
busy fighting the Oz-1 war and now it’s this weather change
problem!”
Wind-blow Water Boat
stion
SOX: sulfur oxides such as sulfur dioxide and sulfates
Hazers: Airborne Particulate Matter (PM)
How many nanoseconds and how
many femtoseconds are there in
one second?
©
HotBox Multi-pack
Jo, Davy and Michael soon found a way to store and transport the
heat and flame energy given out by the Darkfire using small containers they called HotBoxes©. Every Anthro could carry one around.
Their ideas were revolutionary and they invented many other useful
devices to make life underground much easier. So on the cavern
walls they quickly began to advertise their Nanowave Ovens™ for
cooking (“It’s fast, it’s a blast”), the Femtofone© for underground
communications (“Sign up to the Dactyl Network now!”) and the ulIt stared
tra-bright Chlorescent Lamps® (“Making
light work for you.”). All of
©
these needed HotBox energy to work but there was lots of Darkfire
witharea never
loud satisfied: “We want
buried in the caverns. Sadly Anthro
more inventions and in more colours” they begged.
There were some drawbacks to the HotBox© technology. The containers did give off lots of smoke, SOX fumes and the nasty Hazer gangs
that would attack the Anthros and make them cough. So Michael put
powerful pumps into the breathing shafts to take the emissions overground.
A Breather Pump
The Global Warming Potential (GWP) of
carbon dioxide is taken as I, no matter
what time-span. What are the 100 yearGWPs of methane and Freon-12? Why do
these two molecules contribute less to
global warming than carbon dioxide?
A CO-2 Robot
Midge, Michael, Davy, Jo (and Charlie) put their heads together
and came up with a possibility to explain what was happening
by pooling together all their knowledge.
Henry, who was normally quiet said: “When Fo-Tons hit Darkfire it bursts into flames and gets very hot. What if the same
thing happens with the CO-2 robots but instead they only get
very warm when Fo-Tons hit them?”
stared
Michael replied: “Brilliant. And It
they
must behave a bit like hot
water.” Midge said to Davy “We
know
if you get water hot it
with
a loud
makes steam-gas that floats up into the air because we live
around warm vents in the ground. Then when the steam-gas
cools it makes water again and drops down to the surface.”
“That must be how the white floating watering-carriers are
made and work then” said Michael and Midge went on “Yes.
The Ocean water can get quite hot when the Fo-Tons crash into
it. That could drive off moisture as steam-gas. Then when the
steam-gas gets high up in the space it gets colder and makes
rainwater.”
CFC: Chlorofluorocarbon
What are garden greenhouses used
for? How do they work?
Charlie then said: “Maybe when rainwater gets very cold it makes
those white six-sider solids that drop over the mountains of Skouros”.“Yes” Midge said “I know that when my CFCs get into contact
with water it gets cold and makes a white solid. And when that
warms up, after the CFCs have all gone, the water reappears from
the solid.”
“Maybe the place the Gens call Arctica is melting then” said Charlie suddenly. “Where’s Arctica?” said Michael, Jo and Davy together. “It’s a dark, very cold place high up in the space. And it’s danstared
gerous because I almost got stuckItfrozen
on the white solid walls
that are there.”
with a loud
Midge said “The steam-gas that floats up there must get very cold
and then turns into the white solid wall. So if hot robots float up to
there as well and hit it, the wall would turn back into the rain water
that falls back down and overfills the Ocean”.
“If we’re right about this then we have a serious problem here” said
Michael. They were right alright.
And indeed all of the Anthro on all of the Islands were in great
danger because the Meltwater Flood was about to hit them.
Arctica
John Sodeau
Book 2
Illustrated by Nicholas McGuire
PEQ8:The difference between magma and lava is location. Magma resides deep underground and
becomes lava if it has low enough viscosity to travel out of a volcano.
PEQ9: 1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6 = 0.0046 or 0.46%
PEQ10: Joseph Priestley. Humphrey Davy.
PEQ11: Carbon. Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen and Sulfur.
PEQ12: 109 nanoseconds in a second. 1015 femtoseconds in a second.
PEQ13: Carbonic acid. 2 H2O (l) + CO2 (aq) → H3O+ (aq) + HCO3- (aq)
PEQ14: The term “Heat” represents the total energy (kinetic plus potential) of a system whereas
temperature is a measure of only the kinetic (average molecular motion) energy component.
PEQ15: 317 ppmv in 1960. 403 ppmv in April 2015. (Derived from in situ air samples collected at
Mauna Loa, Hawaii, USA. This is the world standard site employed by scientists for the measurement of carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere).
PEQ16: 1 exaJoule is 1x 1018 J. 1Watt is 1 J/sec because power is the rate at which energy is consumed. The difference in annual energy usage between 1950 and 2010 is 450 x 1018 J. So the power
difference will be 450 x 1018/(365 x 24 x 60 x 60) in W. Therefore the answer is 1.43 x 1013 W.