Global Climate Change

Abstract:

Earth climate varies naturally, because of a variety of cosmological and geological processes.

Main Article:

Basic Issues

  • Earth’s climate varies naturally – because of a variety of cosmological and geological processes.
  • “Climate change” refers to an additional, and relatively rapid, change induced by human actions.
  • The additional change – several degrees C within a century – will disrupt the foundations of life on Earth.
  • Ecosystems and life in general have evolved within a narrow band of climatic-environmental conditions.
  • Estimated population at risk of dengue fever under “standard” climate change scenario:  1990,  2085
    GHG: Coming Decades
    The International Energy Agency predicts that the increase in greenhouse gas emissions from 2000 to 2030 in China alone will almost equal the increase from the entire industrialized world.

                 China is the world's second largest emitter of such gases, after the United States – even though China's per-person emissions are, for example, still only one-eighth of those in the United States.
    Categories of climate extremes

  • Simple extremes based directly on climate statistics
    • Hot day = day with temperature > 95th centile
  • Complex, event-driven extremes
    • Droughts
    • Floods
    • Hurricanes/typhoons/tropical cyclones

Lecture Outline

  1. What the unconvinced people are saying
  2. Facts
  3. Uncertainties
    1. Challenges
    2. Human impacts on climate change
  4. Climate change impacts on humans & the environment
  5. What can we do about it?

What the unconvinced people are saying…

  1. “Theory remains entirely unproved.”
  2. “One-in-three chance … that experts are wrong.”
  3. “Models are incapable of handling … water vapor.”
  4. “Troposphere should be warming faster than the surface.”
  5. “If the weather folk can’t figure out what’s happening for the rest of the week, how can they tell us what the climate will be for the next 50 years?”

6. “Guess what?  Antarctica’s getting  colder, not warmer.”
       7.    “Global warming is still just a theory.”
Facts…

  1. Global mean temperature has been going up in the last 140 years.
  2. The magnitude of this variability does not exceed natural variability.
  3. Concentration of carbon dioxide has been going up as well as other greenhouse gases.
  4. Radiative theory of atmospheric gases (greenhouse) and aerosols is important.
  5. Climate change involves the entire “earth system” not just the atmosphere.
  6. Future projections face uncertainties in emission production, modeling, and impacts.

7. Several thousand scientists from 40+   countries all over the world have been involved.


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Author:  admin
Posted On:  Thursday, 11 October, 2012 - 13:38

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