Climate

Change
GROUP 6
Introduction

 The inter-government panel on climate change or IPCC,

a united nations body that evaluates climate change
science, released its report on global climate change,
the reports important conclusions were the ff:
 World’s climate change has change significantly over
the past century the significant change has human
influence, using climate change models and if the trend
continues, the global mean surface temperature will
increase 1 degree Celsius and 3.5 degree Celsius on
2100
Why should a few degrees of
warming be a cause for concern?
 According to experts, global climate change
could have a greater potential to change life in
our planet than anything else except a nuclear
war
 These changes will also lead to a number of
potential consequences
Climate

 Climate change is NOT similar to weather which

constantly changing.
 Climate change refers to long term weather
patterns prevailing over given area of the planet
 The term comes froma greek word klinein
meaning to slope it involves
What is climate change?

 Climate change refers to the statistically

significant changes in climate for
continuous period of time.
Factors that contribute to climate
change
 Can be natural internal process, external forces,
and persistent anthropogenic changes
 In the composition of the atmosphere or in land
use.
 It can also be due to natural occurrences or
contributed by acts of human beings
Causes of climate change

The cause of climate change would be:

 Natural causes
 Human activities
Causes of Climate
Change
Natural Causes

 Volcanic eruptions
When volcanoes erupts, it
emits different natural aerosols
like carbon dioxide, sulfur
dioxide, salt crystals, volcanic
ashes, or dust, and even
microorganisms like bacteria
and viruses. This can cause a
cooling effect to the
lithosphere because it emitted
aerosol can block a certain
percentage of solar radiation
(can last one to two years).
Natural Causes

 Orbital changes
The Earth’s orbit can cause climate change. This
was proposed the Milankovitch theory. This theory
states that as the Earth travels through space
around the Sun, cyclical variations in three
elements of Earth-Sun geometry combine to
produce variations in the amount of solar energy
that reaches the Earth.
Earth’s orbital changes
Natural Causes

 The three elements that have cyclic variations:

1. Eccentricity – it is a term used to describe the shape of the Earth
orbit around the Sun. Eccentricity influences seasonal
differences: when the Earth is closest to the Sun it gets more solar
radiation
2. Obliquity – it is the variation of the tilt of the Earth’s axis. away
from the orbital plane. As the tilt changes the seasons become
more exaggerated.
3. Precession – it is the change in the orientation of Earth’s
rotational axis. The precession cycle takes about 19,000 to 23,000
years. Precession is caused by two factors: wobble of the Earth’s
axis and a turning around of the elliptical orbit of Earth itself.
Natural Causes

 The Carbon Dioxide Theory

Carbon dioxide is added when power and heat is
produced by burning coal, oil and other fossil fuels.
Carbon dioxide is transparent to the sunshine but not
invisible to infrared (heat) radiation leaving the ground.
Carbon dioxide absorbs part of the infrared radiation in
the air and returns it to the ground keeping the air near
the surface warmer than it would be if the carbon
dioxide did not act like a blanket.
Human activities

 Burning of fossil fuels

 Greenhouse gases and aerosols
 Deforestation
 Air Pollution
Human activities

 Burning of fossil
fuels
Human activities

 Greenhouse gases
and aerosols
Human activities

 Deforestation
Human activities

 Air Pollution
Effects of climate change in the
society
 Could cause severe effects to all life forms
around our planet.
 It affects the basic elements of people’s lives.
 Increase world wide deaths from malnutrition
and heat stress
 Melting of glaciers which results to rise of sea
level
 Ecosystem will particularly be vulnerable to
climate change
Elements in the interaction
between the sun and the Earth
1. Aphelion - refers to the point in the orbit of the Earth farthest
from the Sun.
2. Perihelion - the point in the orbit of the Earth closes to the sun.
3. Earth’s axial tilt - the inclination angle of the Earth’s rotational
axis in relation to a line perpendicular to the orbital plane.
4. Precession - the change of the orientation of the rotational
axis of the Earth
5. Equinox – refers to the time the sun at noon is directly over the
equator. It happens twice a year and causes an almost equal
length of day an night
Elements in the interaction
between the sun and the Earth
6. Solstice - happens when the sun at noon sits above the Tropic
of Cancer of Tropic of Capricorn . The summer solstice has the
longest period of daylight in the year and the winter solstice has
the shortest period.
7. Precession of the equinoxes - refers to the motion of the
equinoxes relative to the precession of the Earth’s axis of
rotation. It happens over thousands of year
Milankovitch Parameters

 In the 1930s, Slovak scientist Milutin Milankovitch addressed the

raising concern about the question to what causes dramatic
changes in the day-to-day weather and climate.
 His interest in the daily weather patterns led him to investigate
deeper issues. He knew that it has long been said by astronomers
that the distance from the Sun to the Earth is constant.
 His contemporary scientists critiqued his work, saying that the effects
of the change in the radius of the Earth’s orbit, the change in the tilt
of the spin of the Earth, and the wobble in the spin axis (now called
Milankovitch Parameters) while real, were each so small that they
could not alter the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth enough to
cause the phenomenon like the Ice Age.
Milankovitch Parameters

Milutin
Milankovitch –
proposed the
Milankovitch
theory
Global Warming

 Most of the scientists who study Earth’s atmosphere has been

increasing over 90% in the latter part of the 20th century.
 There are two opposing arguments on the issue of whether or not this
global warming is “natural.”
One side states that nature, simply according to its laws with no
reference to human beings and their actions, is the main reason.

On the other side, it states that global warming is caused or greatly

abutted by the ACTIONS OF HUMAN BEINGS. It lays blame on the
actions of humanity, past and present.
Greenhouse gases

 The so-called greenhouse gases refers to how certain

gases in the atmosphere trap the heat of the sun.
 John Tyndall (British Engineer) meant in his notes that the
atmosphere contains certain gases that naturally
capture the heat from the sun and hold it in so that the
temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere becomes hotter
than it would be otherwise.
 Tyndall also noted that the most prevalent of the
greenhouse gases is the water vapor. Meanwhile, the
amount of CO2 was miniscule.
Greenhouse gases
Greenhouse Effect
Future Actions

 Another area of debate is centered on the predictions as to what

will happen with the climate of the world.
 A computer model is used to the calculations. Some scientists take
the issue further by setting “tipping points”, specifying values of
meteorological parameters in which irreversible changes will take
place. Upon reaching the “tipping point”, a new state would
replace the old one.
 In chaos theory, it meant that the Earth- atmosphere relationship
would become a chaotic region where uncertainty would exist.
Future Actions

 As presented in the reference book, burning of fossil fuels is one of

the major sources of electricity but also leads to higher amounts of
Carbon dioxide.
 If we want to industrialize but at the same time protect the
environment, A BALANCED PLAN must be created.
 Science given humanity a tool for modernization. It allows
emergence of technology that spreads and applies knowledge for
the attainment of the good life.
 It must realized that Science is more like a cookbook than a
blueprint. It is open for experimentation, innovation and refinement.
Mitigation

 Plant trees.
 Be responsible.
 Green the land.
 Freshen the air
 Minimize the use of aerosols
 Avoid illegal logging.
 Minimize burning plastics and fossil fuels.
 Reduce smoke emission.
 Use less transportation.
“ Change starts with you
and me. With our little
deeds, we can help our
Mother Earth in need. ”
-GROUP 6