2/17/22

Climate Science and

Global Climate Change
Weather is the day-to-day state of the atmosphere, and its short-term variation in
minutes to weeks.
UNIT 7 Climate is the weather of a place averaged over a period of time, often 30 years.
Source: NSIDC.org

Outline: Climate Science

1. Primary factors controlling Earthʼs climate
2. How we know how climate has changed in the past?
3. How will climate will change in the future?

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The three primary factors that determine Earth’s climate

1. How much energy we receive from the sun - Milankovitch

cycles

2. How that energy is distributed

3. How much of the sun’s energy Earth retains

If any one parameter changes, the system is disrupted and

responds with a series of feedbacks à and the climate changes.

Earth System Science

• Global temperature changes are
related to composition and
circulation of atmosphere,
ocean circulation, and
characteristics of the land
surface (geosphere, biosphere
and cryosphere)
• Changes in any system (sphere)
affect other systems.

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Earth’s Orbit around the sun, Tilt Axis and the Seasons
Weather vs.
Climate

Furthest @ 150 mill km nearest

Why do we have Seasons on Earth?

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The Milankovitch Cycles

Eccentricity
100,000 year
cycle
~23% more!

Tilt
(Obliquity) Milutin
Milankovich
41,000 year 1879-1958
cycle

Precession AWESOME
(Wobble) TUTORIAL!
26,000 year Check it out
cycle
“The small changes set in motion by Milankovitch cycles operate separately and together to influence Earth’s climate over
very long timespans, leading to larger changes in our climate over tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years”

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Obliquity, Eccentricity, and Precession

How is Solar Energy Distributed?

The Earth receives 1. Atmospheric
more energy at the circulation
equator than at the
poles. The Earth 2. Oceanic
system then tries to
circulation
circulate that energy
toward the poles to
even out the heat

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Atmospheric Circulation Distributes heat from equator

toward poles
Polar cell https://earth.nullschool.net/
Ferrel
cell

Drivers of atmospheric circulation:

1. Solar energy-Convection currents
Hadley cell 2. Earth’s spin -Coriolis effect

Thermohaline Circulation
Distributes heat from equator toward poles
Release of heat to atmosphere as
= “Oceanic Conveyor Belt” water cools and becomes dense, and
sinks to form deep water currents
Evaporation causes water to become
more saline and therefore, more
dense

Ocean
Currents are
driven by
surface winds

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How Much of the Sun’s Energy Stays on Earth:

Earth-Atmosphere Energy Balance

The Earth-atmosphere energy balance is achieved as the energy received from the
Sun balances the energy lost by Earth back into space. In this way, Earth maintains a
stable average temperature and therefore a stable climate.

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Albedo - How reflective the atmosphere and surface are, determines amount
of energy is absorbed by the earth.
Light colored material reflects
more energy back to space

Ice is reflective: Albedo was greater than today during glacial periods

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The composition of the atmosphere determines the amount of

energy absorbed by the earth

The atmosphere is a
component of the
regulation of the planet’s
temperature!

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Greenhouse gases - Heat-trapping gases

- If more build up in atmosphere, the planet warms. If
concentration decreases, the planet cools
- Most important greenhouse gases - water vapor, carbon
dioxide (CO 2), and methane (CH 4).

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Sources /sinks of greenhouse gases

Natural
• volcanoes: emit CO2
• chemical weathering of silicates consume CO2
• ocean – CO2 dissolves into the ocean, used by organisms
• biosphere – can be a source or a sink
• Soil stores CO2
• Plants absorb CO2
• Hydrocarbon deposits (coal, oil) store large volumes of FOSSIL carbon
• Thawing of permafrost can release CH4 and CO2

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Carbon Sources and Sinks

http://www.columbia.edu/~vjd1/carbon.htm

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So, are Volcanic Eruptions to Blame? 🌋 🌋 🌋

• Eruptions produce particles of ash, sulfur dioxide, GHG’s
• Historic eruptions: Laki (Iceland, 1783), Krakatoa (Indonesia, 1883), El Chichón
(Mexico, 1982), Mt Pinatubo (Philippines, 1991) lowered global temps as
much as 1°C (~2°F)
• Flood basalt eruptions such as Siberian Traps (250 Ma) and Deccan Traps (65
Ma) contribution to extinction events and increased global temps
• ‘Normal’ volcanic eruptions produce about 110 million tons of CO2 each year
• Flood basalt eruptions can produce 1 billion tons per year of CO2 and SO2 per
year for decade(+) timescales. Last flood basalt eruption occurred at 16 Ma
• Human activities yearly produce about 1.10 x 1012 tons, or 1,100,000,000,000
tons of GHG’s, 10,000 times more GHG’s than volcanic eruptions

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Is Increased Solar Energy to Blame?

• Since 1750, the amount of energy
coming from the sun has
increased slightly to 0.12 W/m2
• If warming was caused by solar
energy, all layers of the
atmosphere should be warmer as
well. Instead, the upper
atmosphere is cooling and the
lower atmosphere and surface of
the earth are warming
• Human activities are needed to
explain current trends

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Sources /Sinks of greenhouse gases

Anthropogenic
• burning fossil fuels emits CO2 (oil, natural gas, coal)
• agriculture / deforestation
• CO2 emitted from slash and burn; removing plants that
absorb CO2
• CO2 emitted through heavy tilling of soils, use of
industrial fertilizers, and monoculture

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True Energy Source: the Sun

• Remember photosynthesis?

6H2O + 6CO2 + sunlight ---------->

C6H12O6 + 6O2

• Energy stored as sugars/starches that are altered through time into

hydrocarbons

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Combustion Reaction
• Burning fossil fuels reverses the photosynthesis reaction

(hydrocarbon) + O2---------> H2O + CO2 + energy

• Hydrocarbon chemical formulas vary, as do energy and CO2 output

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Carbon Sources and Sinks

& Weathering
Global carbon cycle. Numbers represent flux of carbon dioxide in gigatons
(Source: Figure 7.3, IPCC AR4).
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UNIT 7
Part 2

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Outline: Climate
1. Primary factors controlling Earth’s climate
2. How do we know how climate has changed in the past
3. How will climate change in the future?

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Earth’s Atmosphere Has Changed through Time

Early Earth Present Earth

CO2 98% CO2 .038%

N2 1.9% N2 78%
O2 trace O2 21%
Ar 0.1% Ar 0.93%
Temp. 290 °C Temp. 16 °C
Pressure 60 bars Pressure 1 bars

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Possible causes of climate change through time

Short Term
• 1000’s to 100,000’s years
• Milankovitch cycles
• Changes in atmospheric and ocean circulation
• Solar cycles
• Volcanic emissions

Long Term
• Millions of years
• Plate Tectonics
• Impact ocean circulation, atmospheric circulation

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Climate change over longer time intervals:

- At least 6 major ice ages have occurred in Earth history
- Plate tectonics positions continent(s) over the poles

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Major Ice Ages

through
Geologic Time
“Ice-House” periods

Next slide

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SNOWBALL EARTH HYPOTHESIS

Evidence: Glacial debris, unique rock types (banded iron formations, cap
carbonates), carbon isotope record

Feedbacks

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Where do Climate Records Come From?

PROXY DATA
• Geologic evidence: Glacial features, types of sediments and fossils
• Tree ring record
• Seafloor organisms --fossil temperature record in marine sediments - O
isotopes
• Glacial ice cores - O isotopes

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Proxy Data via Geologic Evidence: Fossils

50 million years, the world had no continental ice sheets
anywhere, not even on Antarctica or Greenland

Tropical conditions extended

There were crocodiles in Wyoming
to high latitudes

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Pleistocene Continental
Glaciation
(~2 million to 10,000 years ago)
Great ice sheets have extended into
temperate regions about 20-30 times in
the most recent 2 to 3 million years

Ice covered 30% of Earth’s land area

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LOW sea level

HIGH sea level

Changes in global ice volume and thermal expansion cause sea level to rise and fall.

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Proxy Data via Tree Rings

Trees grow more when it is
warm than when it is cold
(and wet vs dry)

Dendrochronology

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Proxy Data via Foraminifera

Colder When Earth’s climate becomes colder and ice forms
in polar regions, 16O is preferentially trapped in the
ice

Therefore, relatively more 18O is left in ocean water

and is incorporated into the foraminifera shells and
marine sediments

18
O

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During glaciations, marine sediments are enriched in

oxygen-18 because oxygen-16 is preferentially trapped in
glacial ice. Ratio goes up.

Down = interglacial Up = glacial

0 200 400 600 800

Age (thousands of years)

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This tells us that the ice sheets grew and then melted away repeatedly, on
about a 100,000 year cycle, which is consistent with the Milankovitch Cycle beat

IPCC (2013), Murieta,

2016

Yellow bars represent

warmer interglacial
stages

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Ice Cores!
From Antarctica, Greenland, and
elsewhere

Record of:
O-isotopes
H-isotopes
Dust record
CO2 bubbles

Trapped air bubbles in ice cores.

- Time capsules that contain actual samples of ancient air.
Can directly measure the CO2 concentration of air as old as 650,000 years.

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-CO2 record perfectly matches the temperature proxy record through several
glacial/interglacial cycles.
- The modern CO2 concentration is unprecedented in the last 650,000 years.

Today (02/16/2021),
atmospheric CO2
stands at 416.06 ppm.
The highest previous
value was 290 ppm, at
~270 ka. The rate of
rise is 200x faster than
ever before

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Good match between proxy data and direct measurements

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Actual data: CO2 in the atmosphere – since 1958

https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/ What is the Keeling Curve?

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Current population:
7.6 billion

Current CO2 = 416

ppm
(source NOAA-ESRL)
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccg
g/trends/monthly.html

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Unit 7
Part 3

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Outline: Climate Science

1. Primary factors controlling Earth’s climate
• Solar energy +/- plate tectonics
2. How do we know how climate has changed in the past?
• Proxy data and direct measurements
3. How will climate change in the future?
• Climate models: 2050, 2100
• Tipping points
• Why does this matter?

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Climate Modeling: What is it?

• Simulations of processes and interactions in the climate system (remember those spheres?)
• Many models exist, differ by amount of detail and complexity (# of variables)
• Used with emission scenarios (population, economic forecasts) to predict future climate

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How Are Climate Models Made?

Supercomputers running complex codes (Fortran)

Partial differential equations like the

Navier-Stokes equations for
incompressible flow in three dimensions
(shown above)

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Spatial Resolution
Climate models divide up
the Earth into boxes (grid
cells). Each cell has different
temperature, air pressure,
humidity, and wind speed
parameters.

Improvements in
computing power have
increased spatial resolution
and accuracy

IPCC Assessment Reports (1990-2007)

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Illustration of grid cells used by climate models and the climatic processes that the model will calculate
for each cell (bottom corner). Source: NOAA GFDL

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Temporal Resolution
• Climate models are refined by testing ‘known’ conditions: climate
information from the past and present, including forcings
• Forcings: external factors that change amount of solar energy absorbed by
Earth or trapped by Earth’s atmosphere
• Natural Forcings: changes to solar energy output (e.g., sunspots), volcanic eruptions,
and Milankovitch Cycles.
• Anthropogenic Forcings: emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols, changes in
land use and land cover
• Scientists compare the modelled climate with and without changes in
anthropogenic or natural forcings to determine how much ‘unforced’
variability occurs
• Climate models use information from the past and present, as well as
several types of forcings to extrapolate forwards through time

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How reliable are

climate models?
Even older models
are pretty
accurate
14 models developed
between 1970 and 2007
accurately modeled
changes in global
temperature observed
through 2017 (source:
Hausfather et al., 2020)
Models used in the IPCC 4th Assessment Report are evaluated by comparing their approximately 20-year predictions with what actually happened. Here,
the multi-model ensemble and the average of all the models are plotted alongside the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) Surface
Temperature Index (GISTEMP). Climate drivers were known for the ‘hindcast’ period (before 2000) and forecast for the period beyond. The temperatures
are plotted with respect to a 1980-1999 baseline. Credit: Gavin Schmidt

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NASA: Global Warming from 1880-2020

‘The last seven years have been the warmest seven years on record’
(Gavin Schmidt, Director NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies)

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2.5 to 10°F

Temperatures averaged across all models (Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5)) models for four Representative
Concentration Pathways (RCP) scenarios. Color bars represent likely ranges for global temperature changes by 2100 (source IPCC AR5)

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Climate Change Projections: Rising Sea Level

• BY 2050: NASA, NOAA, the USGS, etc.: Feb. 15th report concludes that
sea level along U.S. coastlines will rise between 10-12 inches on
average above current levels
• 10-14 inches for East coast
• 14-18 inches for Gulf coast
• 4-8 inches for West coast
• 8-10 inches for Caribbean
• 6-8 inches for Hawaii
• 8-10 inches for northern Alaska

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Climate Change Projections: High Surface Temps

• Global temperatures will be an average of 2.7°F (1.5°C) warmer by 2050
• Average temperatures between 3.6 and 9.7°F (2 to 6°C) warmer by 2100
Moderate emission scenario High emission scenario (business as usual)

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SDG = Sustainable Development Goal

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Too hot to survive?

• 'Wet Bulb’ conditions: Too
hot (>88°F) and too humid
(>95%) for sweat to
evaporate

2050 Projections
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Too hot to survive?

• 'Wet Bulb’ conditions: Too
hot (>88°F) and too humid
(>95%) for sweat to
evaporate
• Even healthy humans can’t
withstand wet bulb
temperatures of 95°F or
above: anyone without
access to air conditioning
will risk death

2050 Projections
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Too hot to survive?

• 'Wet Bulb’ conditions: Too
hot (>88°F) and too humid
(>95%) for sweat to
evaporate
• Even healthy humans can’t
withstand wet bulb
temperatures of 95°F or
above: anyone without
access to air conditioning
will risk death
• High-risk areas include Gulf
coast states in U.S.,
southeast Asia, Middle East

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Effects of climate change and global warming

• Rising Temperatures
• Changes in weather patterns
• Droughts and heat waves
• Increased wildfire
• Higher intensity storms
• Stronger hurricanes
• Rising sea level (1-8 feet by 2100)
• Ice-free arctic
• 6th Mass Extinction event

Ceballos et al., 2015 (AAAS Environmental Sciences)

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Feedbacks and Tipping Points

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Cryosphere Entities: Ice-Albedo Feedback

Cause:
• Melting ice exposes generally darker underlying
surfaces
• Darker surfaces absorb more solar radiation
(lower albedo), which accelerates melting of
remaining ice
Effects:
• Regional warming in high northern latitudes is
twice as fast as the global mean
• The Arctic will be ice-free in the summer by 2100

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Circulation Patterns: Slowdown of Atlantic

Thermohaline Circulation
Cause:
• Increased input of fresh water into oceans from
melting ice in the northern hemisphere

Effects:
• Warmer and lower salinity sea water does not sink
• Deep water formation near Greenland and Labrador coast shuts down,
slowing down Atlantic oceanic circulation
• Severe impacts on marine ecosystems, cooling of north Atlantic region,
enhancement of sea-level rise on east coast of U.S.
• Atlantic Thermohaline Circulation has already weakened by as much as 15%

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Biosphere Components: Retreat of Boreal

Forests, Transformation of Amazon
Cause:
• Lack of water, enhanced evaporation, deforestation, forest fires,
pests, and storm damage
Effects:
• Transformation into seasonal forests or scrub and grassland
ecosystems
• Massive release of CO2, which leads to accelerated global warming
• Massive loss of biodiversity

Megafire in Siberia, 2020

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Feedback effects of climate change and global warming

• Warming oceans à Elevated CO2
• Ocean acidification à Elevated CO2
• Deforestation à Elevated CO2
• Soil degradation à Elevated CO2
• Melting permafrost à Elevated CO2 and CH4

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Climate Change Costs

Climate disasters have cost North America $415 billion in last three
years (hurricanes, wildfires). Source: Morgan Stanley
Agriculture:
• Extreme rainfall and flooding events in U.S. Midwest wash away soil
and drown livestock
• $440 million cattle losses in Nebraska (2019)
• Increased heat and drought = decreased crop yields
• For every +1° C increase, crop production decreases 5 to 15% (source:
National Academy of Sciences, 2011)
• $12 Billion/year construction of new power plants (higher temps
require more air conditioning)

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Climate Change as an Economic Risk

High per capita
emissions in global
north
But the primary
impacts are to
global south

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Climate Change as National Security Risk

“Changing weather patterns, rising temperatures, and dramatic shifts in
rainfall contribute to drought, famine, migration, and resource competition…
As each group seeks land for its own purposes, violent conflict can ensue”
--General Thomas D. Waldhauser, then commander of the U.S. Africa
Command, February 2019.
Frequent and/or severe storms, wildfire require involvement of DoD units and
assets
+ Mandatory evacuation of coastal or arctic bases, damage to equipment, risk
to personnel
= ‘All hell breaking loose’ scenario (Climate-Related Risk to DoD Infrastructure)
• Mitigation efforts:
• Sea walls along vulnerable coastal areas
• Investments in renewable energy (ex: Mountain Home AFB geothermal)

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Are we
already
seeing the
effects?

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Is There Hope?
An example from history: chloroflurocarbons
(CFCs)
• Once a common propellant in aerosol cans:
• Spray paint
• Hair spray
• Deodorant spray
• Widespread use of CFCs in the 1960s &
1970s damaged Earth’s protective ozone
Layer
• Ozone ‘hole’ discovered in 1985, linked to
CFC’s
• 1987 Montreal Protocol banned CFC’s
• Steady “healing” of the layer—smallest on
record in 2019

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http://maps.grida.no/library/files/archiv
72 etv07_l.gif

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