Download Do now! - MrSimonPorter

Air?
Air
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78% Nitrogen
21% Oxygen
0.93% Argon and other noble gases
0.04% carbon dioxide
Variable amounts of water vapour
Variable amounts of pollutant gases
Sulphur dioxide SO2
Produced by burning sulphur (or burning
fossil fuels)
S(l) + O2(g)
SO2(g)
In water
Dissolves to form sulphurous acid
SO2(g) + H2O(l)
H2SO3(aq)
Carbon Dioxide
In water
Dissolves to form carbonic acid
CO2(g) + H2O (l)
H2CO 3(aq)
pH 5.5
Oxides of nitrogen
Nitrogen is generally an
unreactive gas, and needs
fairly extreme conditions to get
it to react with oxygen
Nitric oxide, NO
Lightning brings about the direct union of
nitrogen and oxygen in the air to produce
small amounts of nitric oxide, as does the
high temperatures produced in car
engines.
Nitric oxide, NO
It is a toxic air pollutant, often linked with
asthma and allergic responses
Nitrogen dioxide, NO2
In the presence of excess
oxygen, nitric oxide, NO,
will be converted to
nitrogen dioxide,NO2.
Nitrogen Dioxide is a
reddish brown, toxic gas
at room temperature.
NO2 condenses to a
brown liquid, but freezes
to a colourless solid.
Nitrogen dioxide, NO2
Nitrogen Dioxide has been used as a
catalyst in certain oxidation reactions; as a
nitrating agent for organic compounds; as
an oxidizing agent; as a rocket fuel; and as
a flour bleaching agent
You don’t
need to know
about this!
Nitrous oxide, N2O
Formed when
ammonium nitrate,
NH4NO3, is heated. A
colourless gas with a
pleasing odour and
sweet taste, is used
as an anesthetic for
minor operations,
especially in dentistry.
Nitrous oxide, N2O
It is called laughing
gas because of its
intoxicating effect.
It is also
widely used as a
propellant in
aerosol cans of
whipped cream!
Global Warming
The Sun
The sun emits electromagnetic waves
(gamma X-rays, ultra-violet, visible light,
infra-red, microwaves and radio waves) in
all directions.
The earth
Some of these waves will reach the earth
Reflected
37% will be reflected by the earth’s atmosphere.
This is called the earth’s albedo (0.37). (The
moon’s albedo is 0.12)
40%
Absorbed
Some (13%) will be absorbed by clouds
and the atmosphere
13%
Absorbed by the earth
Around 47% reaches the ground and is
absorbed by the earth’s surface.
47%
Absorbed by the earth
This absorbed solar energy is re-radiated
at longer wavelengths (in the infrared
region of the spectrum)
Infrared
47%
Absorbed
• Various gases in the atmosphere can
absorb radiation at this longer wavelength.
H
O
C
O
H
C
H
H
They
vibrate
more
(become
hotter)
Greenhouse gases
• These gases are known as “Greenhouse”
gases. They include carbon dioxide,
methane and CFCs
H
O
C
O
H
C
H
H
Balance
There exists a balance between the
energy absorbed by the earth (and its
atmosphere) and the energy emitted.
Energy in
Energy out
Balance
This means that normally the earth has a
fairly constant average temperature
(although there have been big changes
over thousands of years)
Energy in
Energy out
Balance
Without this normal “greenhouse effect”
the earth would be too cold to live on.
Energy in
Energy out
Bath balance
• It’s a bit like trying to add water to a bath
with the plug hole open.
Bath balance
• The water reaches a certain level but no
higher because the amount of water
leaving eventually equals the amount
entering
Bath balance
• The water reaches a certain level but no
higher because the amount of water
leaving eventually equals the amount
entering
Energy entering the
earth
Earth’s
temperature
Energy leaving the
earth
Greenhouse gases
• Most scientists believe that we are
producing more of the gases that absorb
the infra-red radiation, thus upsetting the
balance and producing a higher
equilibrium earth temperature.
Bath with the plug half in!
This is like trying to fill a bath, but now with
the plug half covering the hole.
A new balance
• Eventually the water will reach a steady
level again, but higher than before.
New HIGHER
equilibrium
temperature
What might happen?
What might happen?
• Polar ice caps melt
What might happen?
• Higher sea levels
What might happen?
• Flooding to low lying areas
What might happen?
• More extreme weather (heatwaves,
droughts, hurricanes, torrential rain)
What might happen?
• Long term climate change
What might happen?
• Associated social problems (??)
Is global warming really
happening?
Is global warming really
happening?
YES
The vast majority of scientists believe the
earth is getting warmer at a rate that is not
caused by natural processes.
Are carbon dioxide levels
increasing?
Are carbon dioxide levels
increasing?
YES
No serious scientists argue against this.
Are increasing carbon dioxide
levels causing the global
warming?
Are increasing carbon dioxide
levels causing the global
warming?
Probably!
Most scientists believe this to be true.
Global warming – a myth?
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A new ice age is due now, but you wont hear it from the green groups, who like to
play on Western guilt about consumerism to make us believe in global warming.
The facts have emerged, in recent years and months, from research into past ice
ages. They imply that the threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear
war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind. (Nigel Calder,
former editor of New Scientist, in International Wildlife, July 1975) The cooling has
already killed thousands of people in poor nations... If it continues, and no strong
measures are taken to deal with it, the cooling will cause world famine, world chaos,
and probably world war, and this could all come about by the year 2000. (Lowe
Ponte, The Cooling, 1976)
As recently as January 1994, the supreme authority on matters environmental, Time
magazine, wrote: The ice age cometh? Last week's big chill was a reminder that the
Earth's climate can change at any time ... The last (ice age) ended 10,000 years ago;
the next one— for there will be a next on—could start tens of thousands of years from
now. Or tens of years. Or it may have already started.The scare about global cooling
was always the same: unprecedented low temperatures; the coldest weather
recorded; unusual floods and storms; a rapid shift in the world's climate towards an
icy apocalypse. But now, the scare is about global warming. To convert from the first
scare to the second, all you have to do is substitute "the coldest weather recorded"
with "the warmest weather recorded". Replace the icicles hanging from oranges in
California with melting glaciers on Mt Everest, and the shivering armadillos with
sweltering polar bears. We were going to freeze but now we are going to fry.
YouTube - The Myth about Global Warming
Cool it – is global warming a myth?
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Guardian Newspaper - October 17, 2007 9:17 AM
Cool It, the latest book from global warming sceptic Bjorn Lomborg, is out this month. And
already his arguments - that many of the predicted effects of climate change, from
melting icecaps to drought and flood, are "vastly exaggerated and emotional claims
that are simply not founded in data" - have triggered heated debate.
Lomborg's decision to attack polar bears, the "poster animals" for climate change, drew
criticism from international animal experts last weekend.
Lomborg says the story of the polar bears encapsulates the problems with many climate
change scares: "Once you take a look at the supporting data the narrative falls apart,"
he writes.
Lomborg, an adjunct professor (ie not permanent) at Copenhagen business school, is no
stranger to controversy. He made his name in 2001 with a book The Sceptical
Environmentalist, which claimed that fears about man-made climate change were
overstated. He faced accusations of scientific dishonesty and was attacked by
environmental groups. In Cool It, Lomborg sets about exploding climate change
"myths". He says it's too soon to say that Greenland's ice is melting fast and that
threats of catastrophic sea-level rise, extreme weather, drought and flooding have all
been over-hyped.
"We hear a lot from people who argue that we are heading for catastrophe. We also hear
from those who maintain climate change is a hoax. Neither of these extremes is right.
The Earth is warming, and we are causing it, but that is not the whole story.
Predictions of impending disaster don't stack up."
YouTube - The Myth of Man made Global Warming
Blogger gets hot and bothered over Nasa's
climate data error
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The Guardian
Thursday August 16 2007
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An amateur meteorologist in Canada has embarrassed Nasa scientists into
admitting that some of the data they used to show significant recent
increases in global warming is flawed.
As a result of Stephen McIntyre's calculations, climatologists at the Goddard
Institute of Space Science in New York now accept that 1934 was
historically the United States' hottest year since records began, not 1998 as
they had claimed. It also turns out that five of the 10 warmest years on
record in the US occurred before 1939, and only one is from the 21st
century, raising questions over the statistics used in Al Gore's
environmental film An Inconvenient Truth to highlight the faster pace of
climate change.
"They have managed it rather poorly," said Mr McIntyre, a prolific internet
blogger from Toronto who pointed out the gaffe to Nasa in an email. He
noticed that temperature deviation readings from numerous weatherrecording stations around the US showed sudden and inexplicable leaps
after 2000. He says the agency refused to share with him the complex
methodology it uses to calculate trends from the data, then quietly changed
statistics to rewrite history without explanation.
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YouTube - The Global Warming MYTH!
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1. There is no proof that the current warming is caused by the rise of
greenhouse gases from human activity. Ice core records from the past
650,000 years show that temperature increases have preceded—not
resulted from—increases in CO2 by hundreds of years, suggesting that the
warming of the oceans is an important source of the rise in atmospheric
CO2. As the dominant greenhouse gas, water vapour is far, far more
important than CO2. Dire predictions of future warming are based almost
entirely on computer climate models, yet these models do not accurately
understand the role or water vapor—and, in any case, water vapor is not
within our control. The best evidence supporting natural causes of
temperature fluctuations are the changes in cloudiness, which correspond
strongly with regular variations in solar activity. The current warming is likely
part of a natural cycle of climate warming and cooling that’s been traced
back almost a million years. It accounts for the Medieval Warm Period
around 1100 A.D., when the Vikings settled Greenland and grew crops, and
the Little Ice Age, from about 1400 to 1850 A.D., which brought severe
winters and cold summers to Europe, with failed harvests, starvation,
disease, and general misery.
YouTube - Global Warming - Doomsday Called Off (5/5)
Gore's climate film has scientific errors - judge
The Guardian Thursday October 11 2007
• Al Gore's Oscar-winning documentary on global warming, An
Inconvenient Truth, was yesterday criticised by a high court judge
who highlighted what he said were "nine scientific errors" in the film.
• Mr Justice Barton yesterday said that while the film was "broadly
accurate" in its presentation of climate change, he identified nine
significant errors in the film, some of which, he said, had arisen in
"the context of alarmism and exaggeration" to support the former US
vice-president's views on climate change.
• The judge made his remarks when assessing a case brought by
Stewart Dimmock, a Kent school governor and a member of a
political group, the New party, who is opposed to a government plan
to show the film in secondary schools.
• The judge ruled that the film can still be shown in schools, as part of
a climate change resources pack, but only if it is accompanied by
fresh guidance notes to balance Mr Gore's "one-sided" views. The
"apocalyptic vision" presented in the film was not an impartial
analysis of the science of climate change, he said.
YouTube - Will Ferrell playing George Bush
Polar earthquakes are nothing new, and don't foretell
catastrophe
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The Guardian
Thursday September 13 2007
Your article (Melting icecap triggering earthquakes, September 8) is misleading and
alarmist. As a climatologist/seismologist working on glacial seismic activity in the
Jakobshavn glacier basin - precisely the area your reporter mentions - I know that
local earthquakes (or glacial quakes) are actually fairly common in the area and have
been for a long time.
I also know that there is no evidence to suggest that these quakes "are happening far
faster than ever anticipated" in the region, as Dr Corell of the global change
programme at Washington's Heinz Centre is quoted as saying.
Glacial earthquakes in Greenland have been monitored for decades using the global
seismic network, and although their number has increased over the last five to six
years - likely due to Arctic warming - in Jakobshavn their number has actually
decreased since 1996, according to a recent report by G Ekström and V Tsai from
Columbia University. However, because these scientists used sensors quite remote
from the area, small quakes may have been missed in Jakobshavn, which is not as
glacially quake-active as other studied areas in eastern and north-western Greenland.
It is unfortunate that your article led with the falling-sky statement: "The Greenland
icecap is melting so quickly that is triggering earthquakes as pieces of ice several
cubic kilometres in size break off." Actually, just the opposite seems to happen. As
ice melting increases, the number and size of glacial quakes eventually decreases,
since there is more water around to lubricate ice motions (quakes occur if there is
enough friction to temporarily keep ice from sliding smoothly).
· Jose Rial is professor of geophysics at the department of geological sciences,
University of North Carolina
No warming
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Nearly everyone believes that the earth is heating up. Is it? Probably not -- at least
there is no evidence that it is. Why then do so many believe in global warming?
Because everybody says so. And that is the only position that is widely reported.
Further, although there has been considerable coverage of the predicted
consequences of climate changes, such things as harmful effects upon agriculture,
the melting of polar ice caps, which will flood coastal areas and low lying islands,
there has been little, if any, analysis of the economic consequences of proposed
solutions.
Temperature records taken in North America and Western Europe over the past 150
years show many ups and downs but no clear trend either toward warming or toward
cooling. This is also borne out by analysis of 135 years of recorded temperatures of
the sea surface taken by ships and ships' personnel. And, more recently, satellite
data recording 24 hours of temperature readings from all over the globe reveal, at
most, there has been a possible 0.30 centigrade temperature rise during 13 years,
that is 1978 to 1991, of continuous satellite temperatures. Now, 0.30 centigrade is
hardly anything anyone can perceive without very special instruments. Were the
global warming-greenhouse theory borne out in nature, we should have experienced
an increase from between 20 and 40 centigrade during the past 200 years. But this
has not happened.
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Dr. Ray holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University and 22 honorary degrees.
Global Warming – What do you
think?
A warning!
A warning!
The hole in the ozone layer is caused by
CFCs and is not connected to global
warning. Please do not link these two
problems!
Just time for a dead dog
Just time for a dead dog
RIP
Poster!
• You are going to design a poster either
1. Warning about global warming and its
consequences
Or
2. Saying that global warming is not
happening and that it is a myth
Your poster has to include at least 3 facts,
and be eye-catching