Transcript Climate Change summary

A LITTLE BIT ABOUT
“CLIMATE CHANGE”
Dr. Ron Lembke
A Scary "Recent" Movie
This is Not New
Frank Capra, 1958

Sun sends Infrared energy to the Earth


CO2 collects in Troposphere
Ozone O3 layer – absorbs ultraviolet radiation from sun
Van Allen Radiation Belts
Magnetic field of Earth creates
radiation belts.
These protect us from particles
flying at Earth via solar wind
(stream of ionized gases at 400
km/sec)
The Evidence
Atmospheric CO2 ppm
Mauna Loa Observatory
400
390
380
370
360
350
340
24% increase in 50 years
330
320
310
300
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
Data: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Graph: Ron Lembke, 1/12/2010
2010
2020
Jan, 2014- Polar Vortex
Jan 2014 Temperature Anomaly
1/29/14
1/27/14
Prudhoe Bay, AK: -2
Mason City, IA: -10
New Heat Map Color, 129°F
US Heat records 2012
Solar Activity?
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/summary.htm
The Theory
CO2 equivalents, aka CO2e


How does the global warming potential (GWP) of a gas compare to CO2
CO2, by definition has GWP = 1.0
Gas
Lifetime
(years)
Methane
GWP
20yrs
GWP 100 GWP 500
yrs
yrs
12
72
25
7.6
Nitrous Oxide
114
289
298
153
HFC-23
270
12000
14,800
12,200
14
3,830
1,430
435
3,200
16,300
22,800
32,600
HFC-134a
Sulfur hexafluoride
IPCC AR4 p. 212

SF6 - 8,000 tons produced per year



6,000 in electrical industry, inert gas for casting magnesium
Inert filling for insulated glazing windows
0.2% of GHG emissions
IPCC

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
 United
Nations Environmental Programme
 World Meteorological Organization

1988 mission: assess risks and impacts of climate
change
 Comprehensive,
open, objective, transparent, scientific
understanding of human-caused climate change



Assessment reports: 1990, 92, 95, 01, 07
Over 90% of change in temps caused by humans
2500 scientific expert reviewers, 800 authors
How Much Agreement?


Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences
1,372 Climate Researchers’ publication and citation
data
 97-98%
most actively publishing support tenets of ACC
outlined by IPCC
 scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of
ACC are substantially below that of the convinced
researchers
The Earth’s Rotation

CO2
 280
ppm for human history
 Last 250 years up to 384 ppm – where we are now

Milankovich Cycles (pp 117-8):
 Earth’s
orbit not circular, 100,000 year cycle
 Tilted axis shifts: 40,000 year cycle
 Plane of orbit relative to sun: 21,000 year cycle
 Seems unlikely
So What’s Expected to Happen?
Climate Models
We’re at 384 ppm
450 ppm would be 2°C increase
 550 ppm would lead to 3° C increase

 Used
to be target
 Pests not killed by freezes
 Ice sheets melting faster than predicted
 Oceans more acidic than thought
 China’s growing faster than expected

350? Really hard
Global Weirding

Atlanta


Montana:






Soils drying out
More water in the atmosphere, has to come down


Elk season had to be moved
No trout in the streams
Snowcaps in August gone
Higher temperatures increase evaporation


Water shortage? Why more than used to?
Means when it rains, it pours, more huge downpours
Changing wind patterns
Search “cities hardest hit by climate change evaporation” Nevada
came up first:
http://www.cier.umd.edu/climateadaptation/Climate%20change--NEVADA.pdf
Cedar River broke record by 6 feet
Public Opinion
In the US, it’s a political issue, so there must be
two sides?
One Politician


“If ninety-eight doctors say my son
is ill and needs medication, and
two say, “No, he doesn’t, he is
fine,” I will go with the ninetyeight. It’s common sense – same
with global warming. We go with
the majority, the large majority.”
Arnold Schwartzeneger

Quoted in Thomas Friedman, (2009)“Hot Flat, and
Crowded,” pp. 178-9.
Rupert Murdoch



Climate change poses clear, catastrophic threats. We
may not agree on the extent, but we certainly can't
afford the risk of inaction.
We must transform the way we use energy, and of
course not only because of climate change...
When I look around the world today, I see continued
dependence on oil from vulnerable regions... and oil
money going to leaders of countries hostile to us. Then
there's accelerating development in China, India and
other developing economies that are reliant on fossil
fuels.
Rupert Murdoch


News Corp. owns Fox.
“Climate change poses clear, catastrophic threats” and
that “We may not agree on the extent, but we certainly
can’t afford the risk of inaction.”


Rupert Murdoch, May 9, 2007
James Murdoch, heir apparent

“Thanks to friendships with Al Gore and Bill Clinton, he has
developed deep green instincts,”


London Telegraph
Wife Kathryn Hufschmid works for Clinton Climate Initiative
Who said it?
Yes, Glenn Beck




Yes, I think the globe has warmed a bit! Approximately 0.74 degree
Celsius (+/- 0.18 degree) in the past 100 years.
Yes, I think that man might be responsible for some part of that
warming, although I’m not 100 percent convinced of how much
The cost of generating power from wind has dropped by 60 percent
since 1990, and power from the first solar cells in satellites is now
98.7 cheaper than when it was introduced.
These technologies will be adopted by the world when - and only
when-- they make economic sense, not when we have to depend on
countries like Russia and China to be virtuous. Sure, our government
can help in the form of tax breaks and incentives, but capitalism is
already well on its way to solving this problem itself.

83% of Americans say world is warming
 71%
of those think it’s caused partly or mostly by humans
 75% said it was warming last year

Skeptics more certain they’re right
 From

35% to 53%
15% of voters say it is their primary concern
A Hoax

Global warming, as a man-made and highly
threatening phenomenon, is at best an
exaggeration, at worst an utter “hoax.”
 Over
half of House Republicans
 Three-quarters of Senate Republicans

“Hoax”
 James
Inhofe, ranking Republican on Senate
Environment and Public Works Committee

Source: NYT “Fact-Free Science,” Judith Warner, 1/25/11
How will anything happen?