The Climate of the Earth: CO2 and

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The Climate of the Earth CO2 and Climate
Change (Global Warming)

• Note climate change was a term invented by
  Republican pollster Frank Luntz, for the Bush
  Administration in 2003, for political reasons.
• Ill use Global Warming as its more accurate
  and doesnt have the political spin.

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Is there a Scientific Controversy about the Cause
of Global Warming?

• No. Climate scientists themselves are convinced
  by the evidence global warming is human-caused,
  primarily by fossil fuel burning. And have been,
  for over 20 years
• AGW Anthropogenic Global Warming, a useful
  abbreviation
• Millions of dollars of oil money is financing an
  ugly mis-information campaign to seed cynicism
  towards legitimate science in the American public
  and in politicians about the cause. See my
  website page on the politics here.

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Note How The More Closely You Understand Climate
Science, The More Convinced You are that Global
Warming is Human-Caused
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Are Global Average Temperatures Rising
Significantly compared to Recent Geologic
History? Yes.
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Longer Term Over Several Hundred Thousand Years
- Ice Ages

• Ice Ages show a strong correlation with small
  changes in the Earths orbital ellipticity,
  orientation, and angle of the Earths spin axis.
  As these go through cycles the Milankovitch
  Cycles the amount of heat delivered to the
  Arctic Circle varies, showing a strong
  correlation with inducing Ice Ages
• Reason Ice is its own refrigerant. White ice
  reflects incoming sunlight, radiates little IR.
  More ice means more reflection, means more
  cooling, means more ice etc.

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• Without Humans to add large amounts of greenhouse
  gases (GHGs) to the atmosphere, temperatures
  rose and fell with very slow geological changes
  (or occasionally, by a big comet/asteroid impact)
• Rising temperatures will slowly lower the amount
  of CO2 that can be dissolved in the oceans,
  pulling it out and adding to GHG warming coming
  out of an Ice Age. This mechanism explains why
  temperature rises preceeded CO2 rises IN THE
  PREHISTORIC GEOLOGIC RECORD.
• This is NOT relevant for todays Global Warming,
  which is caused by GHGs, not slow Milankovitch
  cycles or other slow natural changes.
• Note the Temperature Range Roughly 6 degrees C.
  Thats the same temperature changes climate
  models say we can expect not in 100,000 years,
  but this century.
• So YES todays global warming is significant!

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So Temperatures are Rising Rapidly. Do we Know
for Sure that CO2 is Rising and in a Significant
Amount? YES.
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The Rising Atmospheric CO2 is clearly in
Agreement with Rising CO2 emissions by Human
Activity
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Is there Other Evidence that Rising CO2 levels
are Caused by Humans? Yes.

• 1. Carbon isotope ratio C14/C12 in the
  atmosphere is dropping, exactly as calculations
  say it should, as very low C14/C12 carbon from
  oil and coal dilutes the higher C14/C12 carbon
  which has existed in the atmosphere for millions
  of years.
• (Note C14 is created high in the atmosphere from
  N14 by high energy solar wind and cosmic rays),
  and C14 decays in a few thousand, not hundreds of
  millions of years (when ancient plants were
  buried to produce todays oil and coal reserves),
  so the C14/C12 ratio from long-buried oil is
  extremely low.
• 2. Known production levels of CO2 from mining
  and oil production fit with the rate of observed
  rising CO2 levels. See following slides.

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Global Temperatures vs Atmospheric CO2 vs CO2
Emissions by Humans Last 1000 Years
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So, OK Temperatures are rising dramatically,
and so are CO2 levels, and so are human generated
CO2 Emissions. But, couldnt there be other
causes of global warming that might be as
significant or more so, than human activities?
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The ONLY Known Mechanism which produces Heating
of the Lower Atmosphere AND Cooling of the
Stratosphere is Rising Greenhouse Gas
Concentrations
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And Observations Show that Indeed, the
Stratosphere is Cooling
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Another Key Nighttime Temps Rising faster than
Daytime Temps

• This is expected only from rising greenhouse gas
  concentrations, because of the lag effect of
  temperature rise during the day hot ground at
  night cant radiate away its heat because of CO2
  blanket
• If the sun were somehow causing rising temps, you
  would expect day temps to be rising faster than
  night temps. We see the opposite

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DTR Daily Temp Range 2000 vs 1951.
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But Couldnt there still be something Else? Other
Influences Causing Global Warming, Not Us? No.
The green (greenhouse gas) Curve Dominates
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Climate Modelling Has Improved Dramatically.
Climate Models Can ONLY Fit the Observational
Data if Man-Made GHGs are Included
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But What About Subtle, Indirect Causes

• 1. Svensmark Hypothesis Cosmic Rays causing
  cloud condensation nucleation, and low clouds
  would cool the surface, so maybe this amplifies
  the weak solar radiation effect?
• No First, the theory doesnt make sense.
  Theres plenty of potential cloud nuclei w/o
  having to make more from cosmic rays. Second, the
  observations dont show a believable correlation,
  and third and most important the solar cycle
  shows no trend for the past 60 years, precisely
  when global warming has been most severe and
  accelerating.
• While cosmic ray flux does correlate strongly
  with solar cycle, the observed correlation
  between solar cycle and temperatures is directly
  explained by the known (small) change in solar
  irradiance with solar cycle, only coincidentally
  with cosmic ray influx.

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Svensmarks is the Only Idea Ive Seen which
isnt Outright Climate Denialism at Work. And
Yet You See that it, Too, is Wrong.

• The politics of climate is ugly. See my website
  for details. Look especially at the YouTubes
  Climate Crock of the Week series, which are
  faithful to good science, and also entertaining.
  Linked near the top of this page

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Industry Science If Your Science Hurts Profits,
Dont Expect Objective Honesty! Example

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Conclusion Industry science is suspect.
Industry hires scientists to help it earn
profits. If theres a conflict between the Truth,
and profits.. You can guess which wins

• It may not always be the scientists themselves
  who buckle under threat of losing their jobs
  industry may simply ignore or de-fund studies
  which to not serve their profits
• Contrast with Academia, where support comes from
  the NSF, NASA, and generally unbiased funding
  sources.
• Academic scientists publish in peer-reviewed
  journals. Industry scientists often cant make
  the grade in true journals, and end up having to
  publish in trade journals, which have a poor
  track record of objectivity.

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What Are the Effects of Global Warming?

• Rapid melting of the Arctic. The long term ice of
  the Arctic Ocean is already almost gone, and
  predicted to vanish entirely in just 20 years!
• Greenland is losing ice at an accelerating rate
• Rising sea levels
• Desertification of the mid latitudes is
  accelerating
• Migration of tropical diseases to mid latitudes.
  Malaria is already now being found in south Texas
• Massive dying of forests as pests which used to
  be held in check by cold winters are now
  multiplying. This releases yet more CO2
• Very Dangerous Acidification of the ocean,
  destroying coral reefs and before the end of this
  century - all calcium carbonate shell-building
  animals, a key base of the food chain on Earth.
• We are in the midst of the 6th Great Extinction
  the Anthropocene Extinction. Half or more of all
  species of life on Earth are expected to be
  extinct by the end of this century. Caused by us,
  with Global Warming the single most important
  cause.

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Rising Ocean Concentrations of CO2 and Dropping
pH (Acidification) Clearly Observed
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Worldwide Retreat of Glaciers
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What About the Future? IPCC 2007 Predictions are
not Alarmist Enough why?

• (1) Greenland ice loss did not model lubrication
  of glacier bases by meltwater, being too poorly
  understood.
• In fact, Greenland is losing ice much faster than
  predicted as this base meltwater accelerates
  glaciers into the ocean

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Using Observed Greenland Ice Loss Rates Sea
level rise will be 3 times higher than even the
IPCC 2007 AR4 Predicted
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More Alarming

• The IPCC 2007 modelling did not include the
  effects of Arctic broken ice migrating out of the
  Arctic Ocean and into the warmer Atlantic, which
  is clearly accelerating Arctic Ocean ice loss.
• IPCC 2007 expected the Arctic Ocean would not be
  ice-free until 2100. We now expect itll be more
  like 2030. (see graph on next slide)

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And Most Alarming of All

• Studies show an ice-free Arctic would cause
  thawing of permafrost as far as 1500 km south of
  the Arctic coastline. This region contains more
  than twice the entire carbon content currently in
  the atmosphere.
• Worse by far, it contains 10 times the methane as
  is already in the atmosphere, just in the frozen
  lakes alone. These lakes are now melting.
  (methane is 25x stronger GHG than CO2)
• If all of this methane is released to the
  atmosphere, the Greenhouse Effect heating goes up
  by 400. Then add in further heating due to
  higher humidity (water vapor is a power
  greenhouse gas too), and the above CO2 in peat,
  and climate change would be extreme and many
  times worse than the most pessimistic IPCC 2007
  forecast
• See this video of the arctic lakes methane
  content

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Global Warming is Only a Symptom of a Larger
Problem Living Beyond the Carrying Capacity of
the Earth

• According to Stanford studies, with current
  technology, our planet can support only 1.5-2
  billion people sustainably. We have 7 billion,
  heading up towards 10 billion.
• Topsoil can only be replaced on geological time
  scales. Modern agriculture and land use is
  causing a loss of 1 of our topsoil per year
• Our planet today can only sustainably support 7
  billion people if they are reduced to a standard
  of living equivalent to that in Ethiopia a
  place of widespread grinding poverty. Think about
  that.

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Finally

• Only 36 of Americans believe that global warming
  is caused by human activities, from a Pew poll in
  2009 (AGW is far better understood and accepted
  in Asia and elsewhere)
• A poorly science-educated public is allowing the
  fossil fuel industry and the politicians they
  influence to commit a great tragedy. Both on the
  planet, and our children.
• My opinion, I hope Im wrong, is that the 21st
  century will be very ugly.
• Nolthenius First Law People Learn the Hard Way
• The scientific studies and journal papers backing
  up and expanding on the content of this
  powerpoint can be found on my websites climate
  page Click here. I urge you to read it.
• This is your future more than it is mine.