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Climate and Climate Change Notes

Energy and Climate Change (Emory University)

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Climate and Climate Change Notes

Weather and Climate

 Weather
o Over a short period of ime
o Constantly changing
 Climate
o Over a long period of ime
o Generalized, composite of weather

The Climate System

 Climate is an aggregate of weather condiions over ime at a locale

 Controlled by energy in system
o Solar forcing (342 W/m2 average)
o Earth’s internal heat (~0.06 W/m2)
o Exchange of energy through components
 1. Atmosphere
 2. Hydrosphere
 3. Cryosphere
 4. Lithosphere
 5. Biosphere
 Solar forcing
o Majority of heat to earth comes from sun (342 W/m 2)
 Can run laptop per sqt of earth (~10/m 2)
 ~6000x internal earth energy
o Afected by Albedo (fracion relected by out)
o Angle relaive to sun

Earth-Sun relaions

 Earth moions
o Rotates on its axis
o Revolves around the Sun
 Seasons
o Result of ilt of earth relaive to sun
 Changing sun angle
 Changing length of daylight
 Solsice
o Dec 21-22 Sun verical at laitude 23.5 S
o June 21-22 Sun verical at Laitude 23.5 N
 Equinox

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o March 21-22 and Sept 22-23

o Sun verical at equator

Components of Earth’s Climate System

 1. Atmosphere
o Most mobile (fastest changing) component of the climate system
o Weather is drive by atmosphere
o Layers
 Outer atmosphere
 Very low pressure, litle known efect on climate
 Contains mesosphere, then thermosphere, then exosphere
 Stratosphere (layered-sphere)
 Less dynamic, increasing in temp w/ decrease pressure
 Contains ozone layer
 Weather exists in the Troposphere (turning-sphere) where 75% of air mass exists
o Structure
 Atmospheric layers based on temperature
 Troposphere (mixing sphere)
o Botom layer
o Temp decreases w/ alitude
 About -80 degrees C at top
o Thickness varies – avg height about 11 km
o Outer boundary = tropopause
 Stratosphere
o About 12-50 km
o Temp increases w/ alitude
o Outer boundary = stratopause
 Outer atmosphere
o About 50 km  ?
o Temp decreases w/ alitude
o Composiion
 Mixture of discrete gases
 Major components of clean, dry air
 Nitrogen 78%
 Oxygen 21%
 Argon 1%
 CO2 .036%
 Variable components of air
 Water vapor
o Up to about 4% of the air’s volume
o Forms clouds and precipitaion

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o Absorbs heat energy from Earth

 Aerosols
o Tiny solid and liquid paricles
o Relect sunlight (help color sunrise/sunset)

 Ozone (O3)
o Distribuion not uniform
o Concentrated at about 30 km in stratosphere
o Absorbs harmful UV solar radiaion
o Human acivity is depleing ozone by adding
chloroluorocarbons (CFCs)
o Global warming may also reduce natural O3 producion
o Mild greenhouse gas in troposphere
o Atmospheric dynamics
 Convecive cells swirling on the rotaing Earth drives overall tropospheric wind
currents
 Tradewinds b/t 30 degrees N and S
 Westerlies b/t 30 and 60 degrees N and S
 2. Hydrosphere
o Comprises all liquid water on, over and under surface of earth
 Oceans (99%) – driven by 2 major current systems
 Surface wind-driven currents
o Driven by tradewinds near equator
 Density-driven thermohaline circulaion
o Hot equatorial waters are driven to the high alitudes along the
surface where cold air and less fresh-water inputs cause water
to become salty and dense driving a cold deep-sea current back
to the equators
 Coninental water (~1% total)
 Seas, lakes, rivers, groundwater
 3. Cryosphere
o Frozen water sphere
 Ice caps, glaciers, snowfall
 Sea ice, frozen lakes and rivers
 About 10% of global fresh water
 Interacts heavily w/ hydrosphere, paricularly in glacial periods
 High albedo efect (currently about 30% land covered by ice/snow)

 4. Lithosphere

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o Land surface absorbs visible light and radiates solar/internal energy

o Topography afects wind and rain paterns
o Geography afects fresh-water in oceans/overall circulaion
o Age of oceanic lithosphere controls ocean-depths
o Volcanism afects atmospheric dust level
o Cretaceous Earth
 New Mid-Atlanic Ridge at expense of subducing lithosphere
 Young ocean sits much higher than old
 Ocean water displaced to lands
 Mean sea-level at maximum (~350 m higher than present)
 5. Biosphere
o All organisms living near Earth’s surface
o Plants and animals
o Microbes-marine and terrestrial
o Humans (geologically very new component)

Climate Variaions

 Short-term regional variaions:

o ENSO: El Nino Southern Oscillaion
 3-7 year cycle ideniied by changes in Paciic equatorial surface water temps
 El Nino  La Nina
 Thought to drive a lot of changes in rainfall (drought and loods) globally
o 1. During normal years, warm surface waters pool in the western tropical Paciic
o 2. Trade winds blow from E to W pushing warm surface waters westward
o 3. Cold water wells up from the depths in the eastern tropical Paciic
o 4. During an El Nino, the warm waters shit eastward and the trade winds slacken, or
may even reverse
o 5. During a La Nina, surface waters in the eastern Paciic are colder than normal and the
trade winds strengthen
 Long-term climate variaions
o Milankovitch cycles
 The earth has very long-term changes in its orbit and ilt about the sun
 Helps explain long-term shits b/t glacial and interglacial
 Eccentricity (100 ka, period)
 Tilt (41 ka period)
 Precession about axis (23 ka period)
o Vostok Ice Core
 400,000 year record of temp, CO2 and CH4
 Ice-levels are mimicked by observaions
 Milankovitch may control cycle, but must be strong feedback b/t greenhouse
gasses and temp

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 1. Temperatures and greenhouse gas concentraions decline during ice ages…

 2. And rise rapidly during deglaciaion
 3. Temperatures have been relaively warm and stable during the Holocene

Solar Radiaion and Greenhouse Efect

 Incoming solar radiaion

o Atmosphere is largely transparent to incoming solar radiaion
o Atmospheric efects
 Relecion – albedo (% relected)
 Scatering
 Absorpion

o Most visible radiaion reaches the surface
o About 50% absorbed at Earth’s surface
 Black-body radiaion
o Moon approximates a black-body, absorbing about 93% of solar radiaion due to being
largely covered by maar basalts
o Mean temp is -19 degrees C
o Earth would be comparable w/o trapping hear
 Atmospheric heaing
o Radiaion from earth’s surface
 Earth re-radiates (terrestrial radiaion) at the longer wavelengths
 Terrestrial radiaion is absorbed by
 Greenhouse gasses (esp. CO2 and H2O)
 Heaing troposphere
 Heaing of the atmosphere is termed the greenhouse efect

The Carbon Cycle

 One of a number of geochemical cycles that describe the transport of various elements through
the components of the climate system
o Cycles transport molecules across component interfaces through biological and chemical
reacions
 One example is the acidiicaion of ocean water w/ increased CO2 uptake from
atmosphere
o Residence ime – length of ime a certain molecule states in a reservoir
 Atmospheric carbon levels are currently ~370 ppm
 Increased by about 33% since industrial revoluion about 130 years ago
 Moderated parially by new plant growth and oceans which are uptaking CO2
 Natural carbon cycle
o Volcanism, weathering, sea-air gas exchange

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o CO2 to dissolved organic carbon

o Geologic reservoirs
 Rock carbonates, fossil organic carbon
 Human perturbaions
o Human aciviies (fossil-fuel burning) release a total of 8.0 Gt of carbon into the
atmosphere each year
o New plant growth and air-gas exchange remove 4.8 Gt/year
o Yielding a new atmospheric increase of 3.2 Gt

Climate-Feedback Mechanisms

 Possible outcomes of altering the climate system: 2 Types

o Posiive-feedback mechanisms
 Reinforce the iniial change (snowball efect)
 E.g. temp increase, melts snow, reducing albedo, increasing incoming radiaion
and temp
o Negaive-feedback mechanisms
 Produce results that tend to counter efect, ofseing it (bufering efect)
 E.g. CO2 increases, increases temp, increasing biological acivity, trapping CO2

Human Impact on Global Climate

 Humans have been modifying the environment over extensive areas for thousands of years
o By using ire and overgrazing of marginal lands
o Most hypotheses of climate change are controversial
 Atmospheric CO2 measurements show that it’s been increasing since at least the
mid-1950s
 Ice core CO2 records conirm that the trend began in the 1800s
 Clearing land for agriculture
 Industrial revoluion
 Record of climate shows a ~1 degree C warming over last century
 The atmosphere response
o Global temperatures have increased
 Balance of evidence suggests a human inluence
 Globally avg surface temp is projected to increase by 1.4-5.8 degrees C by 2100
 However, climate models are diicult to predict long-term
 Summer arcic sea-ice has decreased substanially
 Possible consequences of global warming
o Altered distribuion of the world’s water resources and the efect on producivity of
agricultural regions
o Rise in global mean sea level
o Changing weather paterns

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 Higher frequency and intensity of hurricanes

 Shits in the paths of large-scale cyclonic storms
 Changes in frequency and intensity of heat waves/droughts

Climate Change Summary

 Strong evidence supports the idea that anthropogenic CO2 is warming the planet
 Future climate changes in a warming environment are sill uncertain:
o Sea level rise certain (but how much by when?, prepare for ~1m)
o SE precipitaion will become more erraic (water resource management)
o Prospect for increasing hurricane acivity? Warmer water = more energy for hurricanes

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