Transcript State of the Climate 2009

State of the Climate - NOTES
• This is a short presentation to establish the basics of what is happening to
the climate before discussing what we can do about it (And now the
GOOD news).
• This ppt does not try to establish the science of climate change. See
ClimateScienceMar2010.ppt or other AIP ppts for that.
• This presentation was prepared for the Australian Institute of Physics
Education Committee (Vic) by KB and is for the use of science teachers in
talking with their students and with the general public.
• The source of most images and graphs is acknowledged in the notes
pages. Glacier and snow photographs Keith Burrows.
“State of the Climate”
What are the scientists
telling us?
Many scientific organisations have
produced reports in an attempt to
get people to listen
“State of the Climate”
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Temperatures going up (air, land, sea)
Humidity increasing
Ocean heat content increasing
Sea level rising
Snow cover decreasing
Glaciers melting
Sea-ice melting
Title
• text
Title
• text
Title
• text
0.2oC
0.6oC
= 0.015oC
per yr
40 yrs
• Lord Christopher Monckton
of Brenchley’s version of
temperature trends
Title
• Let’s put Monckton’s red line on the
NASA graph
Title
• BUT: 998
X people
1000
gave
Monckton a
standing
ovation in the
Sofitel last
February!
Title
• Prof Ian Plimer
introduced
Monckton
(The one
‘scientist’ a
certain politician
listens to!)
Monckton
spreads his
message with
the help of radio
talk-back
• From
“State of
the
Climate
in 2009”
Title
Title
• text
Title
• text
So this is where we
should look to see if the
Earth is warming!
Title
• text
This is how the deniers
deal with this data!
• text
4 years !
• text
Let’s compress Ashby’s
graph to the same scale
• But there is a little problem – missing heat!
National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)
• Current measurements don’t account for all
the net heat absorbed by the Earth
• (Radiation in minus radiation out)
• But there is a little problem – missing heat!
Ocean heat content is the most
reliable indicator of global warming
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...but also the least obvious!
However, it is the underlying cause of ...
rising sea levels
higher air temperatures
increased ‘extreme events’
changed rainfall patterns
melting sea ice
Rising sea levels
Rising sea levels
Pakistan August 2010
1600 dead
20 million washed from
their homes
One fifth of the country
under water
Loss of property
catastrophic
Economy shattered
Pakistan August 2010
The Indus valley
August 2009 and
August 2010
Pakistan August 2010
• United Nations Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs stated that the scale of
destruction from Pakistan's monsoon flooding
in July and August of 2010 surpassed the
devastation from the 2004 Indian Ocean
tsunami, the 2005 northern Pakistan
earthquake, and the 2010 Haiti earthquake
combined.
China August 2010
Russia August 2010
In Russia, firefighters and soldiers were battling to stop wildfires from
engulfing key nuclear sites ... Morgues in Moscow are overflowing as
officials estimate 5000 have died in the worst heatwave in 130 years.
Sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa
• Lagos — More than ten million people across West Africa are
facing severe hunger and malnutrition because of drought,
poor harvests and rising food prices
• Worsening conditions in the Sahel region of West Africa have
seen malnutrition rates soar as families struggle to find
enough food to eat
• Niger - the world's least developed country - more than seven
million people, almost half the population, facing food
insecurity; 3.3 million, approaching a quarter of the
population, are severely food insecure.
• Another two million people in Chad, more than 600,000 in
Mali and more than 300,000 in Mauritania are at risk.
Is it climate change?
• “There's no doubt that clearly the climate change is a major
contributing factor,” said Dr Ghassem Asrar, director of the
World Climate Research Program and the World
Meteorological Organisation (WMO).
• Scientists are usually more comfortable with trends and
prognostications than with cause and effect; most would
never ascribe a single weather event to climate change.
Which makes Asrar's declarations and similar ones from other
experts all the more remarkable.
The Age 21 August 2010
New weather patterns
• From
“State of
the
Climate
in 2009”
!
Unfortunately it’s not just the Arctic
• The Wilkins Ice Shelf
The collapse
of the Wilkins
Ice shelf
Feb 28 to
March 8
2008
(Approx 50
km long)
Some wise quote