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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 2012
January 10, 2012
Class News
• Ctools site: AOSS_SNRE_480_001_W12
• 2008 and 2010 Class On Line:
– http://climateknowledge.org/classes/index.php
/Climate_Change:_The_Move_to_Action
• 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
First Reading Response
• Summary for Policy Makers (IPCC-AR4)
• Reading responses of roughly one page (singlespaced). The responses do not need to be
elaborate, but they should also not summarize
the reading. They should be used by you as
think pieces to refine your questions and insight
from the readings. They must be submitted via
CTools at least two hours before the start of
lecture for the relevant readings.
Today
• Glimpse in the Climate Change Problem
• 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.
Glimpse into the issues of Climate Change
•
•
•
•
Some history
Some iconic figures
Some observations
Some global climate predictions
Some history (see Weart, AIP)
• The first calculations of the ability of water vapor
and carbon dioxide to warm the Earth’s surface
are often attributed to Fourier. (I will call this the
greenhouse effect.)
• Significant improvements to the quantification of
the warming due to greenhouse gases is
attributed to Tyndall.
• Arrhenius in the late 1800s made estimates of
the impact of doubled carbon dioxide.
Starting point: Scientific foundation (1)
• The scientific foundation of our
understanding of the Earth’s climate is
based on fundamental principles of the
conservation of energy, momentum, and
mass.
• The scientific foundation of our
understanding of the Earth’s climate is
based on an enormous and diverse
number of observations.
Starting point: A fundamental conclusion
• Based on the scientific foundation of our
understanding of the Earth’s climate, we
observe that with virtual certainty
– The average global temperature of the Earth’s
surface has increased due to the humancaused addition of gases into the atmosphere
that hold heat close to the surface.
Starting point: A fundamental conclusion
• Based on the scientific foundation of our
understanding of the Earth’s climate, we predict
with virtual certainty
– The average global temperature of the Earth’s
surface will continue to rise because of the continued
increase of human-caused addition into the
atmosphere of gases that hold heat close to the
surface.
– Historically stable masses of ice on land will melt.
– Sea level will rise.
– The weather will change.
Increase of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (CO2)
Primary
increase comes
from burning
fossil fuels –
coal, oil,
natural gas
Data and more information
IPCC 200
sic physics
emperature
rease is
mple and
antifiable..
Uncertainty
due to models
using a set of
emission
scenarios
Observation
uncertainty
Uncertaint
individual
models
Note: The
consisten
from man
models, m
scenarios
that there
be warmi
(1.5 – 5.5
Projected Global Temperature Trends: 2100
2071-2100 temperatures relative to 1961-1990.
Special Report on Emissions Scenarios Storyline B2 (middle of the road warming).
IPCC 2001
Projections of Temperature in 2100
IPCC 2007
Projection of
Global Average Surface Temperature
(WG_1, SummPolMaker, Fig. 5)
Geographical Distribution of Warming 2090-2099
(Scenario A1B: Syn_Report, SummPolMaker, Fig. 6)
Figures from 2007 IPCC Report
Projections: The Surface
will warm, Ice will melt,
Sea level will rise,
Weather will change.
Observed Temperature Anomaly in 2005
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2005/
See Also: Osborn et al., The Spatial Extent of 20th-Century Warmth in the Context of the
Past 1200 Years, Science, 311, 841-844, 2006
Observed Temperature Anomaly in 2008
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/
See Also: Osborn et al., The Spatial Extent of 20th-Century Warmth in the Context of the
Past 1200 Years, Science, 311, 841-844, 2006
IPCC 2007:
The last
~100 years
Correlated behavior of different parameters
Fig. 2.5. (State of Climate 2009) Time
series from a range of indicators that
would be expected to correlate
strongly with the surface record.
Note that stratospheric cooling is an
expected consequence of greenhouse
gas increases. A version of this figure
with full references is available at
www.ncdc.noaa.gov/bams-state-of-climate/ .
IPCC projections for the next 100 years.
That’s a glimpse into climate change
• We’ve seen this carbon dioxide curve, with
carbon dioxide increasing.
• I’ve told you that carbon dioxide holds heat
close to the surface.
• I showed curves and graphs of global
averaged surface temperature, past,
present, and future.
• Showed sea level and snow melt.
So what do you think?
• What are the strengths of what has been
presented?
• What are the weaknesses of what has
been presented?
• Anything intriguing or especially interesting
about what has been presented?
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
Today
• Glimpse in the Climate Change Problem
• 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.
Scientific investigation of Earth’s climate
Scientific investigation of climate change
• What is scientific investigation?
– Scientific method
• How do we get started?
What is science, the scientific method?
• Elements of the scientific method
– Observations of some phenomenon
– Identification of patterns, relationships and the generation of
suppositions, followed by hypotheses
– In principle, hypotheses are testable:
• Experiments: cause and effect
• Prediction instead of experiments?
– Development of constructs, theory, which follow from
successful hypothesis.
• Predict behavior, what does the next observation might look like?
– Development of tests, experiments that challenge the
hypotheses and predictions.
• Validate or refute theory and elements from which the theory is
constructed.
What is science, the scientific method?
• Science is a process of investigation
– The results of scientific investigation are the generation of
• Knowledge within a prescribed levels of constraints
• Uncertainty: How sure are we about that knowledge?
– Science does not generate a systematic exposition of facts
• Facts are, perhaps knowledge, whose uncertainty is so low, that
we feel certain.
• Theories develop out of tested hypotheses.
– Theory is NOT conjecture
– Theory is subject to change
– There is constant challenge and testing
– Science requires validation
• Requires that hypotheses and theories are testable
• Requires transparency so that independent investigators can
repeat tests and develop new tests.
What is science, the scientific method?
• Science is a process of investigation
– Requires transparency so that independent
investigators can repeat tests and develop
new tests.
– Do you feel that scientific investigation of the
climate is “transparent?”
– Do you feel that independent investigators
affirm basic conclusions?
Science, Scientific Method
• Scientists DO impart their personalities
and beliefs onto their results
– But the fact that it is independently testable,
ultimately, challenges this potential prejudice.
Scientific Investigation
OBSERVATIONS
THEORY
PREDICTION
Scientific Investigation
OBSERVATIONS
PROCESSES
MODELING
Scientific Investigation
OBSERVATIONS
THEORY
EXPERIMENT
Scientific Investigation
OBSERVATIONS
THEORY
EXPERIMENT
Problem Solving
Knowledge Generation
Reduction
Disciplinary
Unification
Integration
(perhaps not unique)
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.
Today
• Glimpse in the Climate Change Problem
• 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.
What to do? What to do?
• Let’s assume for a moment that we have
convincing observations of climate
change, convincing predictions of climate
change, and that we will need to respond
to the climate change.
• How do we organize this problem?
Science, Mitigation, Adaptation Framework
It’s not an either / or argument.
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 very long time scales of the climate change
problem mean that any advantages of controlling
the increase of CO2 are perceived 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 that adaptation has entered into
discourse.
– What about global geo-engineering?
Today
• Glimpse in the Climate Change Problem
• 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.
Relationship of Climate Change to Other Things
Climate Change Relationships
• We have a clear relationship between
energy use and climate change.
CLIMATE CHANGE
ENERGY
The build up of carbon dioxide is directly related to combustion of
fossil fuels: coal, oil, natural gas
World primary energy supply in 1973 and 2003
*
megaton oil equivalent
Source: International Energy Agency 2005
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 is the preface for the course.
• We will first break the scientific investigation down into
pieces.
–
–
–
–
–
Theory
Observations
Prediction
Attribution
Impacts
• We will look at the links of climate change to the other
parts of the problem.
– There is not a simple “solution;” we will not solve this problem and walk
away from it.
– We will be required to manage the climate
• We will define ways forward.
Next time: Fundamental Science of Climate
Course Description from First Lecture
From Course Description
• Identify the important elements of science,
policy, economics, public health, etc.
– Where should we pay attention?
– What do we know versus what do we believe?
• Identify and map the interactions between
these elements and connections to other
external elements
– How big is the problem?
• How is all of this changing?
• This is not a math-oriented course
Course requirements
• Because of diverse nature of students and
issues associated with climate change and
the attributes of real world problem solving
discussion is vital.
• There will be 4 or 5 readings, and you will
write 1 page thought pieces submitted
prior to the lecture.
• Evening discussion sessions.
Helping with the class
• I have a former student who will be helping
with the class
– Kevin Reed
Course Project
• Reflective of workplace …
– “Complex Problems with no Known Solutions.”
• Groups of individuals with varied expertise
• Responsive to “news”
– Relationship of news to science
• Project will provide recommendations, a strategy for addressing the
complex problem.
– What are first steps?
– What do we need to look out for as these steps are taken?
• Monitor progress // briefing during the course
• Presentation at end of course
Course News
• Project
– Grade will be primarily determined on the project
• Start to think about them – perhaps even today
• Teams that bring together several elements of the project
– Should be no larger than 4 people.
– Should not be your friends that have the same background.
• Should be defined by late January
– I will provide a template for thinking about the problem.
– Some guidance in defining projects
• We will visit and re-visit the projects over the course
– That means I will provide management / customer oversight.
• Final presentations at the end
Course News
• Participation
– This semester I will have some modest
requirements during the term in addition to the
project.
– Descriptions of key figures
• What do I mean?
– 4 or 5 papers to read and discuss
• The world 4 degrees warmer
– Class participation