ANTHROPOGENIC IMPACT ON CLIMATE CHANGE

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ANTHROPOGENIC IMPACT ON CLIMATE CHANGE
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WHAT IS THE MEANING OF TERM ANTHROPOGENIC ?

• Activities that are carried by human beings
• British ecologist Arthur Tansley (1936) , used
  this term first time in English in reference to
  Human Influences on climax plant communities
• The term was first time used by Russian Geologist
  A.P. Pavlov in 1922 in reference to the
  ANTHROPOGENIC STYSTEM

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CLIMATE AND CLIMATE CHANGE

• Climate is a measure of the average pattern of
  variation in temperature, humidity, atmospheric
  pressure, wind, precipitation, atmospheric
  particle count and other meteorological variables
  in a given region over long periods of time.
• Climate change- long term change in statistical
  distribution of weather patterns over periods of
  time that range from decades to millions of years
  and more generally known as Global warming or
  Anthropogenic Global warming

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SOLAR RADIATION AND CLIMATE

• Climates are dependent on solar radiation cycle
• Solar radiation derives atmosphere and
  hydrosphere circulation that shifts air masses ,
  water and energy around the world
• Amount of radiation cooler warmer climate

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Earths Temperature
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EARTHS TEMPERATURE
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HUMAN IMPACT ON CLIMATE CHANGE

• History ice core and record of atmospheric
  greenhouse gas concentration of last 10,000 years
  to understood it
• - CO2 conc. Fluctuations, high during warmer
  climate and low during cooler climate
• Expected trend of decreasing CO2 conc. Starting
  about 10,000 years ago that accompanies cooling
  global climate as predicted by solar radiation
  cycle
• But conc. of CO2 started to increase

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INCREASE OF CO2 CONCENTRATION

• So, something new influences and different from
  the factors that had controlled it during warm
  and cold cycles of the past few hundred thousands
  of years

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TRENDS IN CH4 CONCENTRATION

• Same type of concentration change was apparent in
  ice core Methane data
• Shift from decreasing to increasing concentration
  took place 5000 years ago
• New influence on green house gas concentration
  that changed the natural shifts appear to have
  HUMANS

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• Paleoclimatologist William F. Ruddiman hypothesis
  set forth in his book Plows, Plagues And
  Petroleum.
• Anthropocene , it as the era in which humans
  first began to alter the earths climate and ecosy
  stems
• He emphasized that this change is due to human
  activities, as they started farming about 8000
  years ago
• -significant deforestation began about 8000
  years
• -people progressed from stone age to iron age,
  population and agriculture expanded
• -survey completed in England in 1809 A.D.,
  William revealed that 85 countryside was already
  deforested about 700 years before the industrial
  revolution
• -deforestation increased atmospheric CO2 conc.
  From 260 ppm. (7000 years ago) to 280-285 ppm
  (200 years ago)

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WHAT ABOUT METHANE ?

• Started increasing instead of naturally
  decreasing about 5000 years ago
• Ruddiman purposes that wet rice farming in
  South-East Asia may have been the cause, as
  methane generated by plant decay in wetlands
• -rice paddies are tremendous methane generators
• -emissions from livestock, biomass burning

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INITIATION OF CLIMATE CHANGE

• In preindustrial-era increase in atmospheric
  green house gases that date from starting of
  farming may have prevented ICE AGE conditions
  from developing from earth
• -increase in conc. of CO2 and CH4 to create
  warming of 2C, just enough to keep Northern ice
  sheets from growing

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EVIDENCE FOR DRAMATIC REVERSALS IN GENERAL TRENDS

• Occur between 1100 and 1800 A.D.
• Proposal of Ruddiman, people had hard time during
  this periods like by
• -bubonic plague, small pox, typhus and cholera
  killed millions of peoples
• -small pox killed 80-90 of indigenous peoples
  of America (50 million peoples)
• -rendering of increase of green house gases
• -reversal effect on conversion of forest land to
  farmland
• -decreasing of atmospheric concentrations of
  GHGs, leading to global cooling

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LITTLE ICE AGE (COOLER CLIMATE)

• Earths climate was teetering on the edge between
  warming and cooling
• Lower conc. of CO2 sent it on its way toward a
  glacial period
• Time between 1250 and 1850 A.D. has become ,known
  as Little Ice Age
• During this period alpine glaciers expanded
• Expansion of Buffin Island is evidenced by
  surrounding area of dead lichen

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Buffin island

• Baffin Island, in the Canadian
• territory of Nunavut, is the largest
• island in Canada and the fifth largest
• island in the world
• Lichen are scruffy combinations
• of fungi and photosynthetic
• bacteria that grow on tundra and rock surfaces
• They can handle long cold winters but they need
  at least some periods of summer sunlight for
  survive
• - but lichen in Buffin island are dead, mean
  long time covered by snow during little ice age
• -in mid 1800 A.D. Ended little ice age when the
  industrial revolution and fossil fuel burning got
  into full swing
• -today Buffin island is rapidly melting and
  retreating

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• Starting of current episode of GLOBAL WARMING
• The very recent shift warmer to warmer climate is
  taken as CLIMATE CHANGE which is a focus of
  Scientific Research and international
  Environ-mental Policy

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GREEN HOUSE GASES

• In modern-era climate change is generally
  reflected by GLOBAL WARMING which caused by
  green house gases that are continuously added by
  human activities that are linked with human
  dominant ecosystems i.e. Urban- techno-ecosystem
  and agro-ecosystem.
• Major green house gases are carbon dioxide,
  methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, CFCs, sulphur
  hexafluoride and Perfluorocarbon.

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GREEN HOUSE GASES AND HUMAN ACTIVITIES

• I Increase of Carbon dioxide (CO2) conc.
• -deforestation for farmland (CO2 consumers)
• -burning of fossil fuels ( 1kg of FF release 3kg
  of CO2)
• -animal husbandry (increased respiration rate)
• -industrial effluents( hot water and other
  chemicals, effect ocean flora and warming leads
  to reduction of capacity of sinks)
• -conc. Increasing rate is 2.0 ppm in the
  2000-2009s
• -has risen to 392 ppm (parts per million) in
  2013

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GREEN HOUSE GASES AND HUMAN ACTIVITIES

• II Increase of Methane (CH4) conc.
• - GWP-25
• -wet rice cultivation for food
• -animal husbandry (ruminants release CH4)
• -methane hydrate in glaciers
• -burning of organic matter
• -natural gas and oil extraction
• -landfills and there decomposition
• III Increase of Nitrous oxide (N2O) conc.
• - GWP-298
• -released from cultivation practices
• -fertilizers
• -fossil fuel burning
• -industries

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GREEN HOUSE GASES AND HUMAN ACTIVITIES

• IV Release of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)
• - GWP-10,000
• -refrigerators
• -volatile cleaning liquids
• -spray propellants
• V Stratospheric ozone (O3)
• -air pollution
• VI Sulphur hexafluoride (SF6)
• - GWP-22,800
• -electric transmission system
• -magnesium and aluminium processing
• VII Perfluorocarbon (PCFs)
• - GWP-12,200
• -semiconductor manufacturing

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SOME COMMON EFFECTS

• GLOBAL CHANGES
• -Temperature increase
• -Droughts
• -Intensity of Hurricanes increases
• -Heavy rain events
• -Rising of sea level
• -Melting of glaciers
• Nearly 1000mm rain fall on Mumbai in 18 hours,
  July, 26.2005, made flooded conditions
• Spain and Portugal experienced their worst
  drought in 60 years, wheat harvest went down by
  50
• In 2003, European summer was very hot , killed
  30,000 peoples
• Central America and Canada were usually wet ,
  experienced floods

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SOME COMMON EFFECTS contd..

• Warmer oceans will damage corals that are home to
  a million different kinds of plants and animals,
  effect marine life
• Erosion and loss of top soil, desertification
• Rise of levels of salt into coastal marshes and
  aquifers
• Drying of fresh water, Himalayan Glaciers
• In 2007, water scarcity in Australia, irrigation
  was cut off
• 2500 sq. Km of China becomes desert each year
• Glaciers and lakes feeding the yellow river in
  China are shrinking
• Worlds third largest ice field has melted in
  Nepal, threat of flood to densely populated
  valleys
• Extinction of stressed plant and animal species

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SOME COMMON EFFECTS contd..

• Spread of Waterborne Diseases

• Malaria
• Dengue Fever
• Cholera
• Typhoid fever

• Evidence the Caribbean region has experienced a
  marked increase in the incidence of dengue and
  dengue hemorrhagic fever in the past decade
  (Caribbean Epidemiology Centre -CAREC).
• The region is southeast of the Gulf of Mexico and
  the North American mainland, east of Central
  America, and north of South America.

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REFERENCES

1. Rajagopalan, R.2009. Environment And Ecology
   Oxford University Press, New York
2. Hadson, Travis.2011, Living With Earth, An
   Introduction To Environmental Geology Pearson
   Education, U.S.A.
3. Wright, T. Richard and Boore, F. Dorothy. 2011,
   Environmental Science, Toward A Sustainable
   Future Pearson US