Transcript A7-1

Astro 7: Planetary
Climate Science
*Rick Nolthenius
*Office: 706a 479-6506, but better…
*email: See the Astronomy Salsa page to
email me
• Visit my excellent website
• Visit my public climate webpages
• Read about my background
They call me…. Rick
Textbook – “The Cosmic Perspective –
Solar System” by Bennett, Donahue,
Schneider, and Voit
• Use any edition you can find, they’re all essentially
identical.
• This text is used only for the first ~third of the
course, and even that is well-covered by my
powerpoints.
• The other 2/3 of course we’ll specialize on climate
basics, the climate evolution of the Earth, and heavy
emphasis on studying current climate change and
our future, and you’ll use my PowerPoints and some
supplementary web material I’ve written from
assembled research.
• Everyone know how to view PowerPoints (PP’s)? If
you don’t have MS Office, there are free viewers
you can download online.
Grading
• 6 mult. choice quizzes based on text, lectures, on-line material.
- about 12 questions each
- closed notes
.
• Plus, a video quiz, after seeing ~50min video program “Birth of the
Earth”. Take notes and use them during your mult. choice quiz, about 20
questions.
• Final Exam: ~50 mult. choice questions. You may have a single 8x10 sheet
of paper crammed both side with all the notes you can muster, handwritten only.
• Two lowest quiz scores dropped. Those two dropped will include any noshows. Don’t miss more than two quizzes
• I’ll give you very explicit help in making sure you know what you’ll be
quizzed on
• There are Extra Credit possibilities listed on the syllabus
• Buy 10 green narrow scantron sheets from the book store. $3. Cheap!
Keep them in your notebook along with a pencil.
• Course Grade: 70% Quizzes, 30% Final and extra credit opportunities;
essay, star-party attendance, going to public lectures on planetary science
or climate, news clippings, etc.
Important Happy Tidings
about Astro 7 Grading!
• Whereas…The material in this course is THE most
consequential science happening today, and
• Whereas….It will affect all your lives, and even
more it will affect your children and their children’s
children, and
• Whereas…I have a great deal to tell you about a
subject which has been so deliberately muddied by
special interests.
• And Whereas…. this course can therefore feel a
bit intimidating or overwhelming to the average
student….
I will therefore be doing something
different than in my other lecture
classes…
• And it’s this: During lectures, I’ll be extra careful when I’m telling you
something which will directly be in one of your quiz questions.
• At those moments, I’ll expect you to be suddenly writing in your notes, and
hands poking in the air to make sure you understand the idea I’m getting
across.
• I will not be so crass as to say “I will ask you exactly this, worded exactly
this way…”. But I’ll make sure you understand the idea, the facts, the logic
of exactly what I’m going to quiz you on, and that this precise idea/fact
will be one of your exam questions.
• My goal is to TEACH you vitally important knowledge about Climate
and especially Earth Climate Change
• To do that, I need your full attention and participation in the
classroom, and so this is part of how I’ll motivate you to be here
every week. This explicit help will only be given during lectures.
So For Example…
• I may be explaining the Greenhouse effect and how it
happens
• I’ll get to the essential condensation of what and why it
happens, and then give a long meaningful look around the
room, “REMEMBER this – gang. You will be tested on this”
• And then I’ll make sure you KNOW that the greenhouse
effect happens when visible wavelength sunlight warms
the ground, and re-radiated outgoing infrared light from
the ground is then absorbed by atmospheric CO2 and
water vapor trapping that outgoing radiation raising the
“R-value” of our atmosphere and causing the ground to
heat up in order to force the radiation back out to space.
The Vast Majority of Your Study
Material Will be my PowerPoints
• These are large and dense! Some have pointed
out they have too high a ratio of words-to-images.
• Agreed… if you compare to a typical live lecture
PowerPoint.
• But since there is no available textbook that
contains all of this instantly update-able material on
Earth Climate Change, these ARE the textbook.
• Therefore, each slide must be more than a mere
take-off point for live lecturing by the presenter,
they must be fairly complete stand-alone study
sources for my students.
What will we Do in
Astro 7?
We start with “Chapter 0” …
We’ll learn
the
Principles
of Clear
Thinking
Open your mind to Realism: Red pill,
or blue pill?
So you can avoid THIS
How the chemical elements of the
atmospheres arrive on planets
The spectrum of
Greenhouse gases
The disturbing history of Venus’ climate
The atmospheres of the Jovian planets
How we get clues to Exoplanet atmospheres
For Most of the Course, We’ll
Study Earth Climate History and
Climate Change Happening Today:
•
CO2 rules the climates of the inner planets. 2/3 of the course
will be on Earth climate, about which we know the most
How Carbon Moves through
the Earth’s Systems
We’ll see how CO2 Controls
Earth’s Climate
We’ll study the Paleo Climate
of Earth
Climate
modelling;
methods,
challenges,
and how
they inform
our
projections
of the future
We’ll present a brief history of our
understanding of climate change
Ocean/Atmosphere Connection,
and Ocean Acidification
The Politics of Current Climate
Change
We’ll look at the scientific literature on the
psychopathologies of the politically conservative brain, and
how they motivate Climate Denialism
And Political/Economic skullduggery
We’ll study how energy consumption
relates to global population, and…
…how the Thermodynamics of Civilization puts
severe constraints on what is possible to
accomplish, and level of commitments necessary
Strategies for Dealing with
Climate
• How compatible is global economic growth with
stable climate?
• The Thermodynamics of Civilization, and resulting
limitations of what is possible and what needs to be
done
• Are voluntary personal lifestyle choices meaningful?
• Policy actions; why, how to motivate, how to enact
• Legal actions
• Technology strategies, GeoEngineering, and ideas
for lowering atmospheric carbon
Are we Doomed? We’ll Ponder
So – Strap yourself in. We’ll have an
adventure, and a look into our Future
What I will not do…
• Some may worry I’ll at some point be guilt-trip’ing you for
your carbon-intense Western lifestyles, finger-wagging on all
the steps you can take to lower your own carbon footprint.
• No. And not because I’m holding back… it’s because your
voluntary lifestyle actions, even if you inspire others, make,
alas, make NO DIFFERENCE to climate (we’ll do the math).
• Also, guilt-trip’ing the average person for this is counterproductive anyway – it just promotes avoidance of thought
altogether. It can also come off as holier-than-thou to those
you may otherwise be able to educate.
• We’ll have to think BIGGER for policy options
• So, take no heed that I ride my bike in from downtown on
most days – It’s not for climate. No, it’s part of my personal
sanity-preservation strategy. It energizes me, keeps me
healthy, and gets me out of awful Hwy 1 traffic
OK – Let’s begin