Climate Change: The Move to Action (AOSS 480 // NRE 480) Richard B. Rood Cell: 301-526-8572 2525 Space Research Building (North Campus) [email protected].

Climate Change: The Move to Action(AOSS 480 // NRE 480)

Richard B. RoodCell: 301-526-8572

2525 Space Research Building (North Campus)[email protected]

http://aoss.engin.umich.edu/people/rbrood

Winter 2010January 12, 2010

Course News

• NO CLASS on January 19th and 21st 2010

Next Week– We will make these up through project

meetings.

• Syllabus on web site

Class News

• Ctools site: AOSS 480 001 W10• On Line: 2008 Class• First Reading: Spencer Weart’s The Discovery of Global

Warming

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.html

– And in particular two subsections• Carbon dioxide greenhouse effect:

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm• Simple climate models http://

www.aip.org/history/climate/simple.htm

Class News

• Next Reading: Radiative Balance– Radiative Forcing of Climate Change:

Expanding the Concept and Addressing Uncertainties (2005)Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (BASC) Chapter 1

• http://www.nap.edu/books/0309095069/html

• From class website– Executive Summary– Chapter 1: Radiative Forcing

Some Basic References

• Rood Climate Change Class– Reference list from course

• Rood Blog Data Base• Koshland Science Museum: Global Warming• IPCC (2007) Working Group 1: Summary for

Policy Makers• IPCC (2007) Synthesis Report, Summary for

Policy Makers• Osborn et al., The Spatial Extent of 20th-Century

Warmth in the Context of the Past 1200 Years, Science, 311, 841-844, 2006

Today

• What is (and is not) “science?”

• How is (thinking about) the response to Global Warming organized?

• Relation of climate change and other big ticket items.

• Building the scientific basis of climate change.

What parameters/events do we care about?

• Temperature• Water

– Precipitation– Evaporation– Humidity

• Air Composition– Air quality– Aerosols– Carbon dioxide

• Winds• Clouds / Sunlight

• Droughts• Floods

• Extreme Weather

The impact of climate change is Water for EcosystemsWater for PeopleWater for EnergyWater for Physical Climate

Scientific Investigation

OBSERVATIONS THEORY

EXPERIMENT

ReductionDisciplinary

UnificationIntegration

What is science, the scientific method?

• We always have these attributes in the scientific method– Observations of some phenomenon– Predict behavior, what does the next observation might look

like?• How do we affect “control?”

• What is “control?”

• We are seeking cause and effect.

– Validation, can I predict the behavior?– Can I describe this well enough for someone else to repeat it?

Let “science” sit for a while.

Let’s suppose that global warming is real.

• See what I did, I just said global warming instead of climate change.

What to do? What to do?

• Let’s assume for a moment that we have convincing:– observations of climate change– attribution of climate change to increasing

carbon dioxide in the atmosphere– predictions of climate change– need to respond to the climate change

• How do we organize this problem?

Science, Mitigation, Adaptation Framework

Mitigation is controlling the amount of CO2 we put in the atmosphere.

Adaptation is responding to changes that might occur from added CO2

Some definitions (more… )

• Mitigation: The notion of limiting or controlling emissions of greenhouse gases so that the total accumulation is limited.

• Adaptation: The notion of making changes in the way we do things to adapt to changes in climate.

• Resilience: The ability to adapt.• Geo-engineering: The notion that we can

manage the balance of total energy of the atmosphere, ocean, ice, and land to yield a stable climate in the presence of changing greenhouse gases.

A point or two

• Mitigation and adaptation have different characteristics. – A major one is the amount of time for them to

be effective.• The long time scales of the climate change

problem mean that advantages of controlling the increase of CO2 are realized many years after the action to control the increase.

– Cause and effect are difficult to evaluate– Cost and benefit are difficult to evaluate

• Adaptation is far easier to evaluate.

A point of tension

• The discussion of mitigation and adaptation is one of the places where we see tension of beliefs. There was, for some time, the idea that if we talked about adaptation, then we would dismiss mitigation. Plus to talk about adaptation would be to admit there is climate change.– Only recently has adaptation has into

discourse.– What about global geo-engineering?

So far we are developing the language to talk about climate change.

• We have some introduction of the scientific basis of climate change.

• We have a framework for organizing how to respond to climate change.

Climate Change Relationships

Climate Change Relationships

• We have a clear relationship between energy use and climate change.

CLIMATE CHANGE ENERGY

The build up of carbon dioxide is directly related to combustion of fossil fuels: coal, oil, natural gas.

World primary energy supply in 1973 and 2003

Source: International Energy Agency 2005megaton oil equivalent

Energy and Economic Success

The Bottomless Well: Huber and Mills (2005)

Climate Change Relationships

• Consumption // Population // Energy

CLIMATE CHANGE ENERGY

POPULATIONCONSUMPTION

SOCIETAL SUCCESS

Climate Change Relationships

• Consumption // Population // Energy

CLIMATE CHANGE

ENERGY

POPULATION

CONSUMPTION

SO

CIE

TA

L S

UC

CE

SS

Climate Change Relationships

• Climate change is linked to consumption.– The economy depends on us consuming– Consuming generates the waste that causes

climate change.– The consumption that has set us on this road

of global warming has been by a relatively small percentage of the population.

• Wealth is an important variable.• Hence, social equity is an issue.

Some challenges

• If it was not clear when you woke up this morning, climate change touches every element of society.– It sits in relationship with some other

fundamental societal challenges.

• Solutions will be required to infiltrate all elements of society.– What sort of things scale to all society?

SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION OF CLIMATE CHANGE

What are the pieces which we must consider?(what are the consequences)

Belief System Values Perception Cultural Mandate Societal Needs

information flow: research, journals, press, opinion, …

SecurityFood

EnvironmentalNational

Societal SuccessStandard of Living

...???...

ECONOMICSPOLICY

“BUSINESS” PUBLIC HEALTH SOCIAL JUSTICE

ENERGYRELIGION LAW

That was the introduction for the course.

• No matter what your discipline background might be, do you see yourself in this pass through the problem?

• There is not a simple “solution;” we will not “solve” this problem and walk away from it.

• I assert: we will be required to manage the climate.

• Do you see ways forward?

Let’s Build up the Scientific Foundation

• Which means lets build up– The observational foundation– The theory foundation– The validation foundation

Increase of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (CO2)

Data and more information

Primary increase comes from burning fossil fuels – coal, oil, natural gas

Web links to some CO2 data

• NOAA/ESRL Global Monitoring Division– Carbon Cycle Greenhouse Gas– Mauna Loa Carbon Dioxide

• Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center– Recent Greenhouse Gas Concentrations

• NOAA/PMEL CO2 and Ocean

What are the mechanisms for production

and loss of CO2?

About carbon dioxide (CO2)

CO2 is increasing in the atmosphere. Burning changes some organic carbon to inorganic carbon. In ocean transfer of CO2 between CO2 and calcium carbonate and carbonic acid.

In some problems CO2 treated as conserved because of time scales of transport and chemical inertness.

For the climate problem CO2 in the environment is increasing. It takes a long time for it to be removed, but there is a lot of cycling.

Carbon and Terrestrial Exchange

Carbon and Oceanic Exchange

Let’s look to the past

• This is called “paleoclimatology.”

– NOAA’s Paleoclimatology Branch• Ice Core Portal• Vostok Data

– Petit, Nature, 1999

Bubbles of gas trapped in layers of ice give a measure of temperature and carbon dioxide

350,000 years of Surface Temperature and Carbon

Dioxide (CO2) at Vostok, Antarctica ice

cores

During this period, temperature and CO2 are closely related to each other

Times of low temperature have glaciers, ice ages (CO2 <~ 200 ppm)

Times of high temperature associated with CO2 of < 300 ppm

This has been extended back to > 700,000 years

Bubbles of gas trapped in layers of ice give a measure of temperature and carbon dioxide

350,000 years of Surface Temperature and Carbon

Dioxide (CO2) at Vostok, Antarctica ice

cores

During this period, temperature and CO2 are closely related to each other

It’s been about 20,000 years since the end of the last ice age

There has been less than 10,000 years of history “recorded” by humans (and it has been relatively warm)

So what are we worried about?

350,000 years of Surface Temperature and Carbon

Dioxide (CO2) at Vostok, Antarctica ice

cores

Carbon dioxide is, because of our emissions, much higher than ever experienced by human kind Temperature is expected to follow

New regimes of climate behavior? Humans are adapted to current climate behavior.

The change is expected to happen rapidly (10 -100 years, not 1000’s)

CO2 2010

CO2 2100

390 ppm

460 ppm

Assignment 1: Describe this figure.

Write a detailed figure caption for this figure. Length no longer than 1 page. What is shown? What is known? Is there information that can be inferred? The figure can be found at Koshland Science Museum: Global Warming

What about the CO2 increase?

Differences for the Future (100-200 years) ~100 ppm CO2 (Already)

> 200-300 ppm CO2 certain ~ xx C polar T difference ~ xx C global average T difference

New Regimes of Climate Behavior?

ICE AGE

CURRENT(Temperate)

NEW AGE?

Differences from Past (20,000 years) ~100 ppm CO2

~ 20 C polar T difference ~ 5 C global average T difference

Behavior o

f water; P

hase ch

ange

Time gradient of CO2 changes, 2 orders of magnitude (100 times) larger.

Some Basic References

• Rood Climate Change Class– Reference list from course

• Rood Blog Data Base• Koshland Science Museum: Global Warming• IPCC (2007) Working Group 1: Summary for

Policy Makers• IPCC (2007) Synthesis Report, Summary for

Policy Makers• Osborn et al., The Spatial Extent of 20th-Century

Warmth in the Context of the Past 1200 Years, Science, 311, 841-844, 2006

Next time: Fundamental Science of Climate