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Climate Change: The Move to Action
(AOSS 480 // NRE 480)
Richard B. Rood
Cell: 301-526-8572
2525 Space Research Building (North Campus)
[email protected]
http://aoss.engin.umich.edu/people/rbrood
Winter 2010
January 12, 2010
Course News
• NO CLASS on January 19th and 21st 2010
Next Week
– We will make these up through project
meetings.
• Syllabus on web site
Class News
• Ctools site: AOSS 480 001 W10
• On Line: 2008 Class
• First Reading: Spencer Weart’s The Discovery of Global
Warming
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.html
– And in particular two subsections
• Carbon dioxide greenhouse effect:
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm
• Simple climate models
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/simple.htm
Class News
• Next Reading: Radiative Balance
– Radiative Forcing of Climate Change:
Expanding the Concept and Addressing
Uncertainties (2005)
Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate
(BASC) Chapter 1
• http://www.nap.edu/books/0309095069/html
• From class website
– Executive Summary
– Chapter 1: Radiative Forcing
Some Basic References
• Rood Climate Change Class
– Reference list from course
• Rood Blog Data Base
• Koshland Science Museum: Global Warming
• IPCC (2007) Working Group 1: Summary for
Policy Makers
• IPCC (2007) Synthesis Report, Summary for
Policy Makers
• Osborn et al., The Spatial Extent of 20th-Century
Warmth in the Context of the Past 1200 Years,
Science, 311, 841-844, 2006
Today
• What is (and is not) “science?”
• How is (thinking about) the response to
Global Warming organized?
• Relation of climate change and other big
ticket items.
• Building the scientific basis of climate
change.
What parameters/events do we care about?
• Temperature
• Water
– Precipitation
– Evaporation
– Humidity
• Droughts
• Floods
• Extreme Weather
• Air Composition
– Air quality
– Aerosols
– Carbon dioxide
• Winds
• Clouds / Sunlight
The impact of climate change is
Water for Ecosystems
Water for People
Water for Energy
Water for Physical Climate
Scientific Investigation
OBSERVATIONS
THEORY
EXPERIMENT
Reduction
Disciplinary
Unification
Integration
What is science, the scientific method?
• We always have these attributes in the scientific
method
– Observations of some phenomenon
– Predict behavior, what does the next observation might look
like?
• How do we affect “control?”
• What is “control?”
• We are seeking cause and effect.
– Validation, can I predict the behavior?
– Can I describe this well enough for someone else to repeat it?
Let “science” sit for a while.
Let’s suppose that global warming is real.
• See what I did, I just said global warming
instead of climate change.
What to do? What to do?
• Let’s assume for a moment that we have
convincing:
– observations of climate change
– attribution of climate change to increasing
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
– predictions of climate change
– need to respond to the climate change
• How do we organize this problem?
Science, Mitigation, Adaptation Framework
Adaptation is responding to changes that might occur from added CO2
Mitigation is controlling the amount of CO2 we put in the atmosphere.
Some definitions (more… )
• Mitigation: The notion of limiting or controlling
emissions of greenhouse gases so that the total
accumulation is limited.
• Adaptation: The notion of making changes in the
way we do things to adapt to changes in climate.
• Resilience: The ability to adapt.
• Geo-engineering: The notion that we can
manage the balance of total energy of the
atmosphere, ocean, ice, and land to yield a
stable climate in the presence of changing
greenhouse gases.
A point or two
• Mitigation and adaptation have different
characteristics.
– A major one is the amount of time for them to
be effective.
• The long time scales of the climate change
problem mean that advantages of controlling the
increase of CO2 are realized many years after the
action to control the increase.
– Cause and effect are difficult to evaluate
– Cost and benefit are difficult to evaluate
• Adaptation is far easier to evaluate.
A point of tension
• The discussion of mitigation and
adaptation is one of the places where we
see tension of beliefs. There was, for
some time, the idea that if we talked about
adaptation, then we would dismiss
mitigation. Plus to talk about adaptation
would be to admit there is climate change.
– Only recently has adaptation has into
discourse.
– What about global geo-engineering?
So far we are developing the language to talk
about climate change.
• We have some introduction of the
scientific basis of climate change.
• We have a framework for organizing how
to respond to climate change.
Climate Change Relationships
Climate Change Relationships
The build up of carbon dioxide is
directly related to combustion of fossil
fuels: coal, oil, natural gas.
CLIMATE CHANGE
ENERGY
• We have a clear relationship between
energy use and climate change.
World primary energy supply in 1973 and 2003
*
megaton oil equivalent
Source: International Energy Agency 2005
Energy and Economic Success
The Bottomless Well:
Huber and Mills (2005)
Climate Change Relationships
• Consumption // Population // Energy
ENERGY
CLIMATE CHANGE
CONSUMPTION
POPULATION
SOCIETAL SUCCESS
Climate Change Relationships
CLIMATE CHANGE
SOCIETAL SUCCESS
• Consumption // Population // Energy
ENERGY
POPULATION
CONSUMPTION
Climate Change Relationships
• Climate change is linked to consumption.
– The economy depends on us consuming
– Consuming generates the waste that causes
climate change.
– The consumption that has set us on this road
of global warming has been by a relatively
small percentage of the population.
• Wealth is an important variable.
• Hence, social equity is an issue.
Some challenges
• If it was not clear when you woke up this
morning, climate change touches every
element of society.
– It sits in relationship with some other
fundamental societal challenges.
• Solutions will be required to infiltrate all
elements of society.
– What sort of things scale to all society?
What are the pieces which we must consider?
(what are the consequences)
Security
Food
Environmental
National
RELIGION
...???...
POLICY
“BUSINESS”
ECONOMICS
PUBLIC HEALTH
Societal Success
Standard of Living
ENERGY
LAW
SOCIAL JUSTICE
Belief System Values Perception Cultural Mandate
Societal Needs
information flow: research, journals, press, opinion, …
SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION OF CLIMATE CHANGE
That was the introduction for the course.
• No matter what your discipline background
might be, do you see yourself in this pass
through the problem?
• There is not a simple “solution;” we will not
“solve” this problem and walk away from it.
• I assert: we will be required to manage the
climate.
• Do you see ways forward?
Let’s Build up the Scientific Foundation
• Which means lets build up
– The observational foundation
– The theory foundation
– The validation foundation
Increase of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (CO2)
Primary
increase comes
from burning
fossil fuels –
coal, oil,
natural gas
Data and more information
Web links to some CO2 data
• NOAA/ESRL Global Monitoring Division
– Carbon Cycle Greenhouse Gas
– Mauna Loa Carbon Dioxide
• Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis
Center
– Recent Greenhouse Gas Concentrations
• NOAA/PMEL CO2 and Ocean
What are the
mechanisms
for production
and loss of
CO2?
About carbon dioxide (CO2)
CO2 is increasing in the atmosphere. Burning changes
some organic carbon to inorganic carbon. In ocean
transfer of CO2 between CO2 and calcium carbonate
and carbonic acid.
In some problems CO2 treated as conserved because of
time scales of transport and chemical inertness.
For the climate problem CO2 in the environment is
increasing. It takes a long time for it to be removed, but
there is a lot of cycling.
Carbon and Terrestrial Exchange
Carbon and Oceanic Exchange
Let’s look to the past
• This is called “paleoclimatology.”
– NOAA’s Paleoclimatology Branch
• Ice Core Portal
• Vostok Data
– Petit, Nature, 1999
Bubbles of gas trapped in layers of ice give a
measure of temperature and carbon dioxide
350,000 years of Surface
Temperature and Carbon
Dioxide (CO2)
at Vostok, Antarctica ice
cores
This has been extended
back to > 700,000 years
 During this period, temperature and CO2 are closely related to each other
 Times of low temperature have glaciers, ice ages (CO2 <~ 200 ppm)
 Times of high temperature associated with CO2 of < 300 ppm
Bubbles of gas trapped in layers of ice give a
measure of temperature and carbon dioxide
350,000 years of Surface
Temperature and Carbon
Dioxide (CO2)
at Vostok, Antarctica ice
cores
 During this period, temperature and CO2 are closely related to each other
 It’s been about 20,000 years since the end of the last ice age
 There has been less than 10,000 years of history “recorded” by humans
(and it has been relatively warm)
460 ppm
CO2 2100
390 ppm
CO2 2010
So what are we worried about?
350,000 years of Surface
Temperature and Carbon
Dioxide (CO2)
at Vostok, Antarctica ice
cores
 Carbon dioxide is, because of our emissions, much higher than ever
experienced by human kind
 Temperature is expected to follow
 New regimes of climate behavior?
 Humans are adapted to current climate behavior.
The change is expected to happen rapidly (10 -100 years, not 1000’s)
Assignment 1: Describe this figure.
Write a detailed figure caption for this figure. Length no longer than 1 page.
What is shown? What is known? Is there information that can be inferred?
The figure can be found at Koshland Science Museum: Global Warming
What about the CO2 increase?
New Regimes of Climate Behavior?
NEW AGE?
Differences for the Future (100-200 years)
 ~100 ppm CO2 (Already)
 > 200-300 ppm CO2 certain
 ~ xx C polar T difference
 ~ xx C global average T difference
CURRENT
(Temperate)
Differences from Past (20,000 years)
 ~100 ppm CO2
 ~ 20 C polar T difference
 ~ 5 C global average T difference
ICE AGE
Time gradient of CO2 changes, 2 orders of magnitude (100 times) larger.
Some Basic References
• Rood Climate Change Class
– Reference list from course
• Rood Blog Data Base
• Koshland Science Museum: Global Warming
• IPCC (2007) Working Group 1: Summary for
Policy Makers
• IPCC (2007) Synthesis Report, Summary for
Policy Makers
• Osborn et al., The Spatial Extent of 20th-Century
Warmth in the Context of the Past 1200 Years,
Science, 311, 841-844, 2006
Next time: Fundamental Science of Climate