CLIMATE: 

YOUR PERSONAL CONNECTION AND IMPACT

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• To distinguish between weather and climate
• To identify and compare the four spheres of Earth and their interactions on a long-term and         short-term time frame
• Read scientific literature relating to a variety of aspects of climate change
• Determine your personal impact on the planet through your choices
• Engage in meaningful and respectful discussions about climate issues and facts

MATERIALS

• A series of climate related articles that are available via your university library: 1 food and         greenhouse impact related such as:

•  “The Greenhouse Hamburger” by Nathan Fiala. Scientific American Feb 2009, pgs 72-75.

• Several climate related articles for small group discussions such as:

• “Changing Climate: 10 years after an Inconvenient truth” by Thomas Sumner Science News April 16, 2016 pgs 22-29.
• “The Weather Amplifier” by Michael Mann Scientific American March 2019 pgs 43-49.
• “The Jet Stream is Getting Weird” by Jeff Masters Scientific American December 2014, pgs 69-        75.
• “Catching Fever”, by Lois Parshley, Scientific American May 2018, pgs 59-65.

• Access to websites for footprint calculations
• Access via your university library for the video “Inconvenient truth the sequel: Truth to power”

BACKGROUND

Weather and climate describe the world outside of your window on an hourly, daily, yearly and lifetime cycle. Weather is short term and changes both slowly and suddenly.  Have you ever been enjoying a beautiful sunny warm day and seemingly suddenly it begins to get windy and rain, that is weather?  Weather determines what level of clothing you wear that day. Climate describes the long-term conditions that determine the clothing and supplies that you own over a lifetime.  For example, do you own several pairs of snow boots and warm gloves or primarily flip flops and sun hats or perhaps a bit of both, that is climate. Both weather and climate are the result of the complex interactions of several of Earth’s systems: Atmosphere the air, Hydrosphere the water, Biosphere all life, and Geosphere the Earth's materials (figure 1).  Each of these systems interact with one another. You may have heard the catch phrase: ‘Think globally but act locally’.  This relates to the many things that you as an individual can do to positively impact the earth by being aware of your local community and its rural area?  What do you see, hear, smell?  Thinking about each part of the system, FILL IN THE CHART 

Figure 1. The earth is a complex system resulting from the interaction between four main spheres: Air, Water, Land and Life. Image credit M. Ruzek NASA GPA CC BY NC 3.0 https://serc.carleton.edu/earthlabs/climate/index.html

with ways and examples of each system interacting in the short and/or long term with the other systems. Engage in a discussion about the components.

Brief background and history of climate science

Science is the pursuit of objective truth. The scientific method and scientific inquiry are based on observation and an innate curiosity to understand how nature works. Climate science follows the same principles that guide all scientific inquiry.  Observe the natural world, create hypothesis based on current knowledge in order to explain and predict the observations, develop tests and models to explain the observations, refine and modify your tests and predictions when new data and observations provide additional information.  Science is not a set of hardened facts but knowledge of the time to be modified and refined when we have more information. Science consists of hypothesis, theories, and laws.  Science informs our understanding of the world around us.

The history of climate science dates back more than 200 years. We know that the Earth is heated by sunlight and that much of the energy from the sun interacts with the Earth's atmosphere. Some of the incoming solar energy in the form of wavelengths are reflected back into space while others pass through or are absorbed or interact with the different gases in the atmosphere and some reach the surface (figure 2). The overall temperature of our planet is a complex interaction between the amount and type of incoming solar energy, in the form of waves and the amount and type of gasses in the atmosphere.

Figure 2.  Of the 340 Watts per square meter of solar energy that falls on the Earth, 29% is reflected back into space, primarily by clouds.  About 23% is absorbed by atmospheric gases, dust, and other particles. The remaining 48% is absorbed at the surface. Image: NASA’s Earth Observatory https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/EnergyBalance/page4.php (NASA illustration by Robert Simmon. Astronaut photograph ISS013-E-8948.)

SOLAR ENERGY:

Energy from the sun comes in a variety of wavelengths (figure 3). Some wavelengths are very small such as ultraviolet (UV) which are shorter than 380 nm. The shorter wavelengths primarily represent incoming solar radiation.  Some wavelengths that we see as visible light (ROYGBIV) are between 380-760 nm. The longer wavelengths, infrared (IR) are greater than 760 nm, these wavelengths are important in heat.  The difference in the energy carried in the different wavelengths and how the energy changes is the essence of atmospheric sciences, as these wavelengths have the ability to interact with many of the gas molecules in the atmosphere. Infrared (longer) wavelengths are traditionally considered heat wavelengths. Certain gases absorb and then reradiate some of this infrared energy back to the atmosphere and some back down to the surface.  So, the earth is heated directly from solar radiation energy and some of the reemitted absorbed energy from certain greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The Earth is cooled by releasing longer wavelengths such as IR (figure 4). Not all atmospheric gases are created equal when it relates to reflecting, absorbing or reradiated solar energy.  This basic atmosphere physics is well accepted by scientists, it is not controversial, just simply physics.

Figure 3. Energy comes in a variety of wavelengths.  Many wavelengths can penetrate the earth’s atmosphere while others interact with it or are absorbed. Image: By Inductiveload, NASA - self-made, information by NASA Based off of File:EM Spectrum3-new.jpg by NASA The butterfly icon is from the P icon set, File:P biology.svg. The humans are from the Pioneer plaque, File:Human.svgThe buildings are the Petronas towers and the Empire State Buildings, both from File:Skyscrapercompare.svg, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2974242 CC BY-SA 3.0

Figure 4.  The energy that the Earth receives from sunlight is mostly short wave (UV) (left) while the energy radiating into space is mostly longer wave infrared (IR) (right). Image: (NASA illustrations by Robert Simmon.) https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/EnergyBalance

GASSES IN THE ATMOSPHERE

Our atmosphere has five main layers: the exosphere, the thermosphere, the mesosphere, the stratosphere and the troposphere (figure 5). The atmosphere thins out in each higher layer until the gases dissipate in space. According to NASA atmospheric scientists there is no distinct boundary between the atmosphere and space, but an imaginary line about 100 km (62 miles) from the surface, called the Karman line, this is where the atmosphere meets outer space.  The lowest layer, the troposphere is where clouds and weather occur. It reaches from the surface up to approximately 20 km (12 miles).

Figure 5. The four main layers of the Atmosphere. The Exosphere is not shown and resides above the Thermosphere. Image: Randy Russell, UCAR https://scied.ucar.edu/learning-zone/atmosphere/layers-earths-atmosphere. https://opensky.ucar.edu/

Each time you take a breath you are breathing in primarily 78% Nitrogen, 21% Oxygen, and trace amounts of the gases Argon (0.93%), Carbon Dioxide CO2 approximately 415 ppm (280 ppm in 1750) and Neon Helium, Methane and Krypton (all in ppb or less).  Without greenhouse gases in the atmosphere the surface of the earth would have a temperature of approximately -180C (00F) rather than an average of 150C (590F).  

Not all gases interact with solar radiation in the same way.  The dominant two gases, Nitrogen and Oxygen are diatomic gases, which means that they are primarily found as a pair N2 and O2.  Diatomic molecules that are made of the same molecule are symmetric and stretch back and forth, these vibrations are much faster than infrared radiation, and the opposing directions of the vibrations cancel out as a result they are transparent to infrared energy and do not act as a greenhouse gas. Gases such as Carbon Dioxide CO2, Methane NH3, Nitrous Oxide N2O and water vapor H2O are asymmetric or have bends.  This produces a vibration by bending that matches infrared wavelengths. When they interact with heat (IR) wavelengths the vibration increases, and they heat the surrounding air and reemit heat wavelengths (IR).  Of the complex molecules that act as Greenhouse gases water vapor H2O which is highly variable in concentrations, think clouds and vapor concentrations, Carbon Dioxide CO2, Methane NH3 and Nitrous Oxides N20 all act to heat the atmosphere (figures 6 & 7).  

Water vapor concentrations are determined in part by temperature and saturations levels, and         cycles between the oceans, life on the planet and the atmosphere continually in an approximately two-week cycle.  

Carbon dioxide is naturally emitted by volcanoes and absorbed by plants and incorporated to         produce carbonate rich rocks such as limestone and hydrocarbons such as coal. Some of these rocks are locked into old layers buried deep within the earth’s crust, some are subducted at convergent boundaries due to tectonic processes and some of the carbon is eventually released back into the atmosphere through volcanoes or simple weather processes. This cycling can take tens of millions of years.  But carbon dioxide is constantly exchanging between the atmosphere, the oceans and plant life on a yearly to hundreds of thousands of years cycle. The ocean and plants absorb nearly half of the atmospheric carbon dioxide. Thus, we know that carbon dioxide is a long-lived greenhouse gas in the atmosphere.

Methane is both naturally occurring (organic matter breakdown) and formed by biological         (ruminant digestion-cows), geological (methane clathrates) and industrial (burning fossil fuels)         processes.  It is found below ground and under the seafloor and is the main constituent of natural gas.  It is a very long-lived global greenhouse gas with a greater warming potential molecule for molecule than Carbon Dioxide and has increased significantly since 1750.

Nitrous Oxides is emitted during agricultural and industrial activities, combustion of fossil fuels         and solid waste. It is naturally present in the atmosphere as part of the Earth’s nitrogen cycle         and has an average cycling time of over 100 years.  It is also more powerful than Carbon Dioxide.

Figure 6. Various percentages of several greenhouse gases in total emissions from 2018 equals 6,677 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent. Image: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/overview-greenhouse-gases

Figure 7. Short wavelength of incoming solar radiation (yellow) interacts with greenhouse gases and is converted to longer wave heat radiation (red) and reradiated. Image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas#/media/File:Greenhouse-effect-t2.svgBy A loose necktie - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=80356809

HUMAN IMPACTS

By the end of the 19th century scientists began to recognize that humans were adding significant amounts of the long-lived greenhouse gas carbon dioxide to the atmosphere from industrial processes, namely by Nobel laureate Svante Arrhenius. Arrhenius predicted that increasing CO2 would warm the planet. Starting in 1958 we began directly measuring CO2 levels in the atmosphere (figure 8).  Dating back to 1880 measurements were deduced from atmospheric gas bubbles trapped in glaciers and other proxy measures. There are several proxies used by the scientific community such as isotope variation, glacial cyclic swings based on Milankovitch cycles, and others.  Further discussion of them is beyond the scope of this unit.

Figure 8. Annual, global mean surface temperature (green) and the natural logarithm of atmospheric CO2 concentration (blue). Image: LINKfile:///G:/1%20NEW%20PHYSICAL%20LAB%20MANUAL/Climate_Primer.pdf

Scientists and the scientific method follow the axiom that correlation is not causation.  This statement states that just because two events follow a similar or the same trend does not necessarily mean that one causes the other. There may be a third factor influencing both. Scientists also know that the long-term climate has changed significantly over geologic time.  There are both long-and short-term variables to global weather and climate from such factors as El Nino’s and volcanic eruptions. The question then remains, what is so unusual about the past 100 to 150 years (figure 9).

Figure 9. Ten year moving average of the global average temperature over land from 1750 to 2012. The blue curve is from the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies; the green, from NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center; the red, from the United Kingdom Hadley Center’s Climate Research Unit; and the black curve with gray uncertainty bounds, from the University of California Berkeley Earth Project. Image: LINKfile:///G:/1%20NEW%20PHYSICAL%20LAB%20MANUAL/Climate_Primer.pdf. http://berkeleyearth.org/archive/summary-of-findings/

CLIMATE RISKS

Increasing global temperatures may seem like an obvious threat to the planet, but associated risks such as rising sea levels impacting a large portion of the world’s population (approximately 40% of the world’s population lives within 100 km of a coastline), increasingly volatile weather phenomenon such as rainfall (droughts and excess), destabilizing food supplies, atmospheric phenomenon in both frequency and magnitude of tornadoes, hurricanes, heat waves and windstorms are the result of this change.  Increasing levels of acidity in the oceans also threatens a wide variety of species and our marine food supply. The overwhelming scientific evidence points toward the majority of our planet rapidly warming over this past century due to increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide and other important greenhouse gases.  Considerably more than 90% of climate scientists attribute the bulk of the increase in global mean temperature over the past three to four decades to the anthropogenic (human) increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases that commenced with the industrial revolution. The great majority of these scientists hold that continued warming presents significant risks to humankind over the coming centuries (figure 10).  This position is also articulated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).  

For more details, please see any of the following substantial documents

The Climate Primer by Dr Kerry A. Emanuel of MIT, Atmospheric scientist.

A meta-analysis publication Consensus on Consensus: a synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming. By Cook et al., 2016: Consensus on consensus: A synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming. Environ. Res. Lett. 11,

Organizations such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) are available to provide consistent scientific reports and findings concerning many issues such as global climate change.  

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.

Figure 10. A graphical representation of climate risks based on a small difference between a 1.5 and 2.0 0C increase in global temperature. Image: World Wildlife fund.

https://www.wwf.org.uk/updates/our-warming-world-how-much-difference-will-half-degree-really-make

WHAT CAN I DO?

There are many components of global climate change that seem out of our individual control.  Awareness of the facts surrounding the many issues is the single greatest start.  Improving our planet's health begins when each and every one of us commits to increasing our awareness and making changes.  The changes range from small local scale actions such as, food choices, transportation choices, reducing waste and water consumption to medium level choices such as, reducing community pollution, and recycling to large scale choices such as, identifying government agencies and corporations that support equity-based and sustainable green plans.

ENGAGING IN CIVIL DISCOURSE

Part of this lab will involve reading and discussing scientific literature relating to climate issues.  For a meaningful and successful discussion of a potentially sensitive topic a few guidelines read to be address:

Do your part and read the literature and take notes with the intent to discuss.  When discussing any issue, speak briefly (do not dominate a conversation), make only one or two points.

Listen carefully and openly when others speak.  Do not interrupt.  When responding to another’s point of view, make sure that you understood what they said by trying to repeat it. Do not make personal comments.

Be respectful of other viewpoints, treat comments with empathy and kindness. Counterpoints         should be supported with facts.

OUR FIRST TASK will involve knowledge about our everyday choice of food. The human carbon footprint attributed to food production, land use, transportation and consumption is significant. It is estimated that carbon associated with food production is approximately 25% of global greenhouse gases (figures 11 & 12).

EVERYONE: is to read the “Greenhouse Hamburger” article Scientific American 2009.         Take a few notes and be prepared to discuss in class.  Did you know how different foods produced vastly different amounts of pollution?

Figure 11. A graphical representation of Food production and types as they relate to greenhouse gas emissions. Image: CC BY Hannah Ritchie of the OurWorldinData.org.

https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local

Figure 12. Specific carbon footprints of protein-rich foods.  Image CC BY Joseph Poore and Hannah Ritchie of the OurWorldinData.org. https://ourworldindata.org/less-meat-or-sustainable-meat

Awareness of climate issues is the cornerstone and beginning of making a change.  You are tasked with educating yourself about your footprint: You may choose either carbon, OR water, OR foodprint. In class we will discuss the many and surprising components that influence each of these footprints. I hope that you feel comfortable sharing what aspects you may be willing to address and reduce.

SECOND TASK: Use the websites below to calculate your carbon footprint, or water footprint OR FOODprint.  An EPA and Nature Conservancy link is below for the carbon footprint. A water and food print link are also below. The first step in making positive changes for the planet is to be aware of the science. In class we will discuss the components of the ‘footprints’. If the below links don’t work right away, try copying and pasting the links directly into the address bar of your browser.

Choose one of the two carbon footprint calculators below:

EPA carbon footprint

Nature conservancy carbon footprint 

OR, calculate your water footprint or Foodprint:

Water footprint website 

Foodprint 

THIRD TASK: Consider one thing that you as an individual will commit to doing to become more aware of the planet and climate. Below are a few links to help you become more informed about two earth related subjects OR add your own:

PLASTIC: Green education foundation and National Geographic 

E-WASTE: EPA 

Awareness, education and confidence to openly discuss, are necessary to create an informed citizenry.  We will read several scientific articles relating to a variety of climate issues.  Take careful notes and be prepared as a small group to teach the important content material to the class.  Confidently being able to engage in a civil, productive, and empathetic conversation about a sensitive subject is an important life-long skill.  

FOURTH TASK: Choose one of the 4 articles on the Canvas in the Climate Module. Read one, write a fact sheet style summary, and be prepared to discuss in class.

LASTLY: As the media is a powerful and dominant source of information, we will watch a video relating to global climate change.  You are asked to respond to a few questions.

Watch the powerful documentary, “An inconvenient sequel: Truth to power”

Answer questions below.

What did the National Academy of Science agree with?

What did Al Gore want to tell the senator about?

Since the original "An Inconvenient Truth" came out ten years ago what has gotten worse?

When were the 14 of the 15 hottest years on record?

What was the hottest year on record?

What is Swiss Camp?

Where is all the water from the great glacier going?

How many different countries where attending the Miami Training?

How many days in May was Portugal relying solely on wind energy?

On whom did the Attorney General of New York launch an investigation?

How is the atmosphere described in the film?

What do warmer conditions increase the range of?

What was predicted to happen to the 9/11 memorial 10 years before it happened?

What was the biggest ocean-based storm to make landfall?

What was the reasoning behind the suspension of the Paris broadcast?

What did SolarCity offer to India to make them consider renewable energy as a viable option?

How much was the loan to help India turn to renewable energy?

The beauty and fragility of our atmosphere. Solar power drives Earth’s climate. Energy from the Sun heats the surface, warms the atmosphere, and powers the ocean currents. Image: (Astronaut photograph ISS015-E-10469, courtesy NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth.) https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/EnergyBalance