The document discusses several factors related to climate change:
1. It discusses three primary factors that influence Earth's orbit and axial tilt - eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession - and how these Milankovitch cycles impact climate over long time periods.
2. It explains the Ruddiman hypothesis, which suggests that human agricultural activities beginning around 8,000 years ago prevented the onset of a natural ice age, and industrialization in the 19th century further disrupted the climate cycle.
3. It provides examples of how human activities like fossil fuel use, deforestation, and agriculture have increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere like carbon dioxide and methane, driving unprecedented modern climate change.
Through the project the students will learn that the temperature of Earth is increasing which is threat to human civilization.We should minimise the fuel consumption to reduce green house gases.The students will learn real life Mathematics .They will learn to predict the amount of ice amount of Arctic sea by using linear equation.
The amount of sea ice in ( sq km) is a linear function of year.
Some pictures are taken from www.nasaclimate.org
The project was selected for seminar " Development of quality teaching in Mathematics" at RIE, Ajmer under Poster presentation category .
The freeze-thaw threshold of 0°C is crucial in polar regions. Large changes in physical, biological, and human systems occur when temperature crosses this threshold. Therefore, any climate change that shifts the freeze-thaw line, whether in space or time, will bring about important impacts
Through the project the students will learn that the temperature of Earth is increasing which is threat to human civilization.We should minimise the fuel consumption to reduce green house gases.The students will learn real life Mathematics .They will learn to predict the amount of ice amount of Arctic sea by using linear equation.
The amount of sea ice in ( sq km) is a linear function of year.
Some pictures are taken from www.nasaclimate.org
The project was selected for seminar " Development of quality teaching in Mathematics" at RIE, Ajmer under Poster presentation category .
The freeze-thaw threshold of 0°C is crucial in polar regions. Large changes in physical, biological, and human systems occur when temperature crosses this threshold. Therefore, any climate change that shifts the freeze-thaw line, whether in space or time, will bring about important impacts
Water Cycle Lesson PowerPoint, Hydrological Cycle, Biogeochemical Cycles Lessonwww.sciencepowerpoint.com
This PowerPoint was one very small part of my Ecology Interactions Unit from the website http://sciencepowerpoint.com/index.html .This unit includes a 3 part 2000+ Slide PowerPoint loaded with activities, project ideas, critical class notes (red slides), review opportunities, challenge questions with answers, 3 PowerPoint review games (125 slides each) and much more. A bundled homework package and detailed unit notes chronologically follow the PowerPoint slideshow.
Areas of Focus within The Ecology Interactions Unit: Levels of Biological Organization (Ecology), Parts of the Biosphere, Habitat, Ecological Niche, Types of Competition, Competitive Exclusion Theory, Animal Interactions, Food Webs, Predator Prey Relationships, Camouflage, Population Sampling, Abundance, Relative Abundance, Diversity, Mimicry, Batesian Mimicry, Mullerian Mimicry, Symbiosis, Parasitism, Mutualism, Commensalism, Plant and Animal Interactions, Coevolution, Animal Strategies to Eat Plants, Plant Defense Mechanisms, Exotic Species, Impacts of Invasive Exotic Species. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me. Thank you again and best wishes.
Sincerely,
Ryan Murphy M.Ed
www.sciencepowerpoint@gmail.com
Planet Earth and its properties necessary to support lifeSimple ABbieC
Department of Education | Senior High School
Topic: Planet Earth and its properties necessary to support life.
Learning Competency:
Earth and Life Science: Recognize the uniqueness of Earth, being the only planet in the Solar System with properties necessary to support life.
Earth Science (for STEM): Describe the characteristics of Earth that are necessary to support life.
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Climate change discussion and various scientific viewpoints weave a matrix of knowledge in an incredibly complex global environment. Carbon dioxide sequestration is part of the matrix of environmental solutions that will accelerate our ability to develop and deploy green renewable energy.
As a result of our consumer culture lifestyle, we are polluting the earth and slowly changing its temperature. As a result, weather patterns will be less predictable and water level will rise significantly
Climate change is an extended change in the Earth’s regular pattern of atmospheric conditions and its fluctuations
Global warming is caused by an enhanced greenhouse effect mostly caused by anthropogenic activity
Water Cycle Lesson PowerPoint, Hydrological Cycle, Biogeochemical Cycles Lessonwww.sciencepowerpoint.com
This PowerPoint was one very small part of my Ecology Interactions Unit from the website http://sciencepowerpoint.com/index.html .This unit includes a 3 part 2000+ Slide PowerPoint loaded with activities, project ideas, critical class notes (red slides), review opportunities, challenge questions with answers, 3 PowerPoint review games (125 slides each) and much more. A bundled homework package and detailed unit notes chronologically follow the PowerPoint slideshow.
Areas of Focus within The Ecology Interactions Unit: Levels of Biological Organization (Ecology), Parts of the Biosphere, Habitat, Ecological Niche, Types of Competition, Competitive Exclusion Theory, Animal Interactions, Food Webs, Predator Prey Relationships, Camouflage, Population Sampling, Abundance, Relative Abundance, Diversity, Mimicry, Batesian Mimicry, Mullerian Mimicry, Symbiosis, Parasitism, Mutualism, Commensalism, Plant and Animal Interactions, Coevolution, Animal Strategies to Eat Plants, Plant Defense Mechanisms, Exotic Species, Impacts of Invasive Exotic Species. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me. Thank you again and best wishes.
Sincerely,
Ryan Murphy M.Ed
www.sciencepowerpoint@gmail.com
Planet Earth and its properties necessary to support lifeSimple ABbieC
Department of Education | Senior High School
Topic: Planet Earth and its properties necessary to support life.
Learning Competency:
Earth and Life Science: Recognize the uniqueness of Earth, being the only planet in the Solar System with properties necessary to support life.
Earth Science (for STEM): Describe the characteristics of Earth that are necessary to support life.
Please LIKE / FOLLOW and SHARE my other social media accounts.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Simple-ABbieC-131584525051378/
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Youtube:
http://tiny.cc/SimpleABbieC
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Slideshare:
https://www.slideshare.net/AbbieMahinay
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Blogger:
https://simpleabbiec.blogspot.com/?m=1
Climate change discussion and various scientific viewpoints weave a matrix of knowledge in an incredibly complex global environment. Carbon dioxide sequestration is part of the matrix of environmental solutions that will accelerate our ability to develop and deploy green renewable energy.
As a result of our consumer culture lifestyle, we are polluting the earth and slowly changing its temperature. As a result, weather patterns will be less predictable and water level will rise significantly
Climate change is an extended change in the Earth’s regular pattern of atmospheric conditions and its fluctuations
Global warming is caused by an enhanced greenhouse effect mostly caused by anthropogenic activity
Bright
Dark
Blues
Grays
Night
Assignment 2The Global Environment: An Emerging World View (cont.)
Reading Assignment:
Read Article 5, A safe operating space for humanity by Johan Rockstrom et al. on pages 36-41 in your textbook.
Overview:
This lesson will illustrate understanding of how locally-based activities influence global phenomena as climate change. You will also observe that in a time of disappointing progress is occurring in global initiatives to curb greenhouse gas emissions, one of the most promising paths might be a localized action.
The authors identified planetary boundaries that must not be crossed in order to avoid significant environmental degradation.
Of the 10 factors considered, 3 of them--biodiversity loss, climate change,and agricultural pollution--have already crossed the threshold for a sustainable planet.
Evidence so far suggests that, as long as the thresholds are not crossed, humanity has the freedom to pursue long-term social and economic development.
Topics Covered:Planetary BoundariesClimate ChangeRate of Biodiversity LossNitrogen and Phosphorus CyclesDelicate Balance
Key Terms:
Planetary Boundaries -- boundaries that define the safe operating space for humanity with respect to the Earth system and are associated with the planet’s biophysical subsystems or processes.
Holocene -- the unusually stable environment of the planet for the past 10,000 years, which has seen human civilizations arise, develop, and thrive.
Anthropecene -- an era that has arisen since the Industrial Revolution, in which human actions become the main driver of global environmental change.
EPA -- Environmental Protection Agency (www.epa.gov) for more information.
Greenhouse Gas (GHG)-- an atmospheric gas such as carbon dioxide, water vapor, or methane that easily absorbs infrared radiation & gives off heat, some of it directed toward space & the rest toward Earth.
Carbon Cycle -- the cycle of CO2 in the Earth‘s ecosystem; photosynthetic organisms transform the gas into organic nutrients, which are then restored to a gaseous state by respiration & decay. Instructor's Comments:
Fact 1: Currently, atmospheric CO2 concentration is 31% higher than in 1750, a level that has not been exceeded during the last 420,000 years.
Fact 2: The primary cause is human activity, particularly fossil fuel use & deforestation leading to further increases in CO2.
As we have seen a similar trend in the previous lesson, the following graph illustrates the CO2 concentration (dashes) and the global surface Ts (solid line)
Fact 3: Burning fossil fuels in power plats and automobiles ejects poisonous particles & gases that alter the chemical structure of the Atmosphere.
Fact 4: Worldwide CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas) reached a record 30.6 Billion metric tons in 2010 that economists and scientist call this as “a wake-up call”. (Source: Int.
Effects of Global Warming Essay
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What are we doing to our climate? What is it doing to us? What can we do?Paul H. Carr
OVERVIEW
I will be introducing you to ECONOMIC, ECOLOGICAL, and TECHNOLOGICAL ISSUES.
¥ Climate change is an unintended consequence of carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels.
¥ By pricing in the social and environmental cost of these emissions, we can expedite their reduction. Let’s harness profit greed towards green technology development.
¥ The environmental challenge is to balance the beauty and sacredness of nature with its utility.
ABSTRACT
What are we doing to our climate? The scientific consensus. Tides and temperatures are rising. Since the beginning of the industrial age, emissions from fossil fuel burning have raised carbon dioxide concentrations to 410 ppm. This is 33% higher than in the last million years. This increase is warming our planet via the Greenhouse Effect. At the present rate of carbon dioxide increase, we will reach 800 ppm by 2100. When our earth was at this concentration 40 million years ago, it was so warm that there was no ice. Sea levels were about 300 feet higher than today.
What is climate change doing to us? “The earth and its poor cry out, and we must listen” Pope Francis. Dry regions are drier and wet ones wetter. Wildfires have increased threefold since 1970, storms more violent, floods setting record heights, and glaciers melting. Natural catastrophes are occurring more than twice as frequently as in 1980. Sea levels could rise as high as 18 feet by 2060. Parts of Earth are increasingly uninhabitable, resulting in millions of climate change refugees, CLIMmigration.
What can we do? Religion and science matter. Ethics trumping economics. Let’s yoke our knowledge of climate science with the motivational power of spiritual values. We need to reduce our carbon footprints. We now have the option to purchase green electric cars getting the equivalent of 100 miles per gallon and solar PV panels to lower our electric bills. We can support the Citizen’s Climate Lobby which advocates a revenue neutral carbon production fee resulting in a dividend returned to all. This would stimulate our economy creating millions of jobs and increase the deployment of green solar, wind, and nuclear energy sources. Thorium, in addition to uranium, is a green energy source for the future. Republicans are less afraid of nuclear energy than Democrats.
Polar Political Economy, Climate Change, and the ArcticGordon M. Groat
A layman's perspective on the emerging polar political economy and how climate change in the Arctic will be a driving factor in the development of polar politics and economic change.
Evolving Collaboration Patterns in North American Research Using Advanced Collaborative GRID Infrastructures : A Canadian Perspective Based on Co-Linking of High Performance Research GRIDs
A paper that examines unharvested computational overhead (CPU cycles) typically found in most large institutions, especially universities and colleges.
Search and Society: Reimagining Information Access for Radical FuturesBhaskar Mitra
The field of Information retrieval (IR) is currently undergoing a transformative shift, at least partly due to the emerging applications of generative AI to information access. In this talk, we will deliberate on the sociotechnical implications of generative AI for information access. We will argue that there is both a critical necessity and an exciting opportunity for the IR community to re-center our research agendas on societal needs while dismantling the artificial separation between the work on fairness, accountability, transparency, and ethics in IR and the rest of IR research. Instead of adopting a reactionary strategy of trying to mitigate potential social harms from emerging technologies, the community should aim to proactively set the research agenda for the kinds of systems we should build inspired by diverse explicitly stated sociotechnical imaginaries. The sociotechnical imaginaries that underpin the design and development of information access technologies needs to be explicitly articulated, and we need to develop theories of change in context of these diverse perspectives. Our guiding future imaginaries must be informed by other academic fields, such as democratic theory and critical theory, and should be co-developed with social science scholars, legal scholars, civil rights and social justice activists, and artists, among others.
Transcript: Selling digital books in 2024: Insights from industry leaders - T...BookNet Canada
The publishing industry has been selling digital audiobooks and ebooks for over a decade and has found its groove. What’s changed? What has stayed the same? Where do we go from here? Join a group of leading sales peers from across the industry for a conversation about the lessons learned since the popularization of digital books, best practices, digital book supply chain management, and more.
Link to video recording: https://bnctechforum.ca/sessions/selling-digital-books-in-2024-insights-from-industry-leaders/
Presented by BookNet Canada on May 28, 2024, with support from the Department of Canadian Heritage.
GraphRAG is All You need? LLM & Knowledge GraphGuy Korland
Guy Korland, CEO and Co-founder of FalkorDB, will review two articles on the integration of language models with knowledge graphs.
1. Unifying Large Language Models and Knowledge Graphs: A Roadmap.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.08302
2. Microsoft Research's GraphRAG paper and a review paper on various uses of knowledge graphs:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/graphrag-unlocking-llm-discovery-on-narrative-private-data/
Accelerate your Kubernetes clusters with Varnish CachingThijs Feryn
A presentation about the usage and availability of Varnish on Kubernetes. This talk explores the capabilities of Varnish caching and shows how to use the Varnish Helm chart to deploy it to Kubernetes.
This presentation was delivered at K8SUG Singapore. See https://feryn.eu/presentations/accelerate-your-kubernetes-clusters-with-varnish-caching-k8sug-singapore-28-2024 for more details.
GDG Cloud Southlake #33: Boule & Rebala: Effective AppSec in SDLC using Deplo...James Anderson
Effective Application Security in Software Delivery lifecycle using Deployment Firewall and DBOM
The modern software delivery process (or the CI/CD process) includes many tools, distributed teams, open-source code, and cloud platforms. Constant focus on speed to release software to market, along with the traditional slow and manual security checks has caused gaps in continuous security as an important piece in the software supply chain. Today organizations feel more susceptible to external and internal cyber threats due to the vast attack surface in their applications supply chain and the lack of end-to-end governance and risk management.
The software team must secure its software delivery process to avoid vulnerability and security breaches. This needs to be achieved with existing tool chains and without extensive rework of the delivery processes. This talk will present strategies and techniques for providing visibility into the true risk of the existing vulnerabilities, preventing the introduction of security issues in the software, resolving vulnerabilities in production environments quickly, and capturing the deployment bill of materials (DBOM).
Speakers:
Bob Boule
Robert Boule is a technology enthusiast with PASSION for technology and making things work along with a knack for helping others understand how things work. He comes with around 20 years of solution engineering experience in application security, software continuous delivery, and SaaS platforms. He is known for his dynamic presentations in CI/CD and application security integrated in software delivery lifecycle.
Gopinath Rebala
Gopinath Rebala is the CTO of OpsMx, where he has overall responsibility for the machine learning and data processing architectures for Secure Software Delivery. Gopi also has a strong connection with our customers, leading design and architecture for strategic implementations. Gopi is a frequent speaker and well-known leader in continuous delivery and integrating security into software delivery.
Builder.ai Founder Sachin Dev Duggal's Strategic Approach to Create an Innova...Ramesh Iyer
In today's fast-changing business world, Companies that adapt and embrace new ideas often need help to keep up with the competition. However, fostering a culture of innovation takes much work. It takes vision, leadership and willingness to take risks in the right proportion. Sachin Dev Duggal, co-founder of Builder.ai, has perfected the art of this balance, creating a company culture where creativity and growth are nurtured at each stage.
Slack (or Teams) Automation for Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Soluti...Jeffrey Haguewood
Sidekick Solutions uses Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Solutions Apricot) and automation solutions to integrate data for business workflows.
We believe integration and automation are essential to user experience and the promise of efficient work through technology. Automation is the critical ingredient to realizing that full vision. We develop integration products and services for Bonterra Case Management software to support the deployment of automations for a variety of use cases.
This video focuses on the notifications, alerts, and approval requests using Slack for Bonterra Impact Management. The solutions covered in this webinar can also be deployed for Microsoft Teams.
Interested in deploying notification automations for Bonterra Impact Management? Contact us at sales@sidekicksolutionsllc.com to discuss next steps.
The Art of the Pitch: WordPress Relationships and SalesLaura Byrne
Clients don’t know what they don’t know. What web solutions are right for them? How does WordPress come into the picture? How do you make sure you understand scope and timeline? What do you do if sometime changes?
All these questions and more will be explored as we talk about matching clients’ needs with what your agency offers without pulling teeth or pulling your hair out. Practical tips, and strategies for successful relationship building that leads to closing the deal.
Let's dive deeper into the world of ODC! Ricardo Alves (OutSystems) will join us to tell all about the new Data Fabric. After that, Sezen de Bruijn (OutSystems) will get into the details on how to best design a sturdy architecture within ODC.
3. Climate
Systems
Climate
Planetary
Position & Human
Solar
Output Change Systems
Ecological
Systems
4. This is a physically
Impossible view of
Earth imaged by Galileo
Orbiter taken directly
over the South Pole.
Why is this view
physically impossible?
Image credit
NASA/JPL
5. Solar Insolation
Milankovitch Cycles
The Anthropocene Stall
The Ruddiman early Anthropocene hypothesis suggests that
if solar insolation and Milankovitch cycle theories are
ascribed to, then Earth is in an Ice Age now... But that the
effects and full onset of a normal Ice Age have been
forsetalled by the onset of agrarian activities some 8,000
years ago and accelerated in the 19th century by the advent
of the industrial age
6. 3 Primary Factors
Eccentricity
Axial Tilt
Precession
Credit: Montana State University Department of Earth Sciences
Dr. William W. Locke
A hypertext for the appreciation of glaciers, and how they work
By the students in Geology 445
Glacial Geology - Spring, 1999
7.
8.
9.
10.
11. Grinnell Glacier taken from the Grinnell Glacier Overlook off
the Highline Trail, Glacier National Park. The view of Grinnell
Glacier taken circa 1940 shows the early formation of Upper
Grinnell Lake, a pro-glacier lake visible at the terminus of the
glacier.
12. The lake continues to enlarge as
the glacier recedes. Icebergs can
be seen floating in Upper Grinnell
Lake.
This this photo was taken in
2005.
Credit: Blase Reardon
US Geological Survey
13.
14. The Sun observed by SUMER instrument on
the SOHO satellite on March 2-4, 1996.
(Source: SOHO - SUMER Instrument).
15. Volcanic eruptions may send ash and
sulphate gas high into the atmosphere.
The sulphate may combine with water
to produce tiny droplets (aerosols) of
sulphuric acid, which reflect sunlight
back into space.
Large eruptions reach the middle
stratosphere (19 miles to 30 kilometres
high). At this altitude, the aerosols can
spread around the world.
16.
17. Cloud feedback could accelerate global warming.
Fewer low level clouds mean that more sunlight reaches
Earth’s surface, leading to further warming.
Credit: Goddard Space Flight Center - EOS Project Science Office
18. Credit: University of Hawaii at Manoa
College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources
CTAHR Exchange – C. Y. Hu
Sustainable Agriculture
25. CO2 carbon dioxide
CH4 Methane
N2 O Nitrous oxide
High GWP (global warming potential) gas
◦ HFC’s hydrofluorocarbons
◦ PFCs perfluorocarbons
◦ SF6 sulphur hexafluoride
* To name some
26.
27. The Montreal Protocol demonstrates what can
be achieved with global perspective, effective
collaboration, and prudent stewardship.
28. 2006 World Meteorological
Organization/United
Nations Environment
Programme Scientific
Assessment of Ozone
Depletion concluded the
ozone hole recovery would
be masked by annual
variability for the near
future and the ozone hole
would fully recover in
approximately 2065.
Full Recovery estimated 2065
29.
30.
31. We know about CO2 and CH4
We can mitigate through human intervention
Methane Gas (CH4) has significant potential to
damage to Earth’s Atmosphere
There could be 400 Gigatons of Methane
locked in the frozen Arctic Tundra
32. Methane has significant
capacity to accelerate
global warming
We do not know if there
is a tipping point in
atmospheric
composition
It is possible that
Methane can contribute
to a chain reaction that
could alter the
fundamental
composition of
atmospheric gases
33. Massive Organic
Content
Warming causes
microbial activity
that generates
methane
Methane on this
scale could tip
climate change
beyond human
control
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39. Seeding the ocean with iron to produce
extensive phytoplankton blooms
Off the coast of Vancouver
Island, Canada.
Millions of tiny ocean plants
called phytoplankton
Risks:
Oceanic ecosystem complexity
Production of domoic acid
Toxic to marine mammal life
Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (MODIS)
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49. 1 typical car annual = 5.5 tonnes
100 watt light bulb annual = .9 tonnes
Upgrading and refining 10 barrels of bitumen = 1 tonne
Cool It - Free Online CO2 Calculator
http://www.cool-it.us/index.php?refer=&task=carbon&step=1
Editor's Notes
As Climate Change accelerates, the need for Canada to assume a global leadership role grows.
While some may debate if climate change is anthropogenic, there is little room to debate the global land-ocean temperature index. The rise is indisputable and, if it continues, there are other factors that can further accelerate climate change. Methane release is certainly a very important subject in this context.What Causes Climate Change?Climate change is enormously complex. We know it is caused by Earth (natural causes) and Human systems a.k.a. anthropological impact. Emissions of gases, aerosols, and various pollutants combined with anthropological changes in global ecosystems weave an intricate and complex fabric of climate change accelerators (CCA).Earth systems, i.e. (natural causes) contribute to climate change primarily via planetary positioning relative to the sun and variance of solar output. It is also impacted by volcanic activity and other naturally occurring geological events.Of the human generated greenhouse gases, it is CO2 that represents the largest human system contribution to climate change. Methane CH4 has significant potential to accelerate climate change.
Climate change is a result the interwoven fabric of Earth and Human systems. No one solution can possibly resolve the issue. The only logical solutions are to fund and conduct research in the environmental sciences and take actionable steps designed to reduce the human contribution to climate change. We’ve all heard that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. The precise impact human changes will have upon complex global ecosystems are impossible to fully predict. As such, existing technologies are not sufficient to resolve climate change. That said, combinations of international, national, provincial, state, and municipal policies and action may mitigate the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that are classified as anthropogenic. Applied research, extending technologies, and reducing human contribution to climate change are, without a doubt, part of an immense matrix for success. Ecological systems also have tremendous impact. Mass extinction events, geologically speaking, can be traced to roughly correlate with massive releases of methane into the atmosphere. Methane is a GHG that is substantially more potent then man made GHG emissions. There are manmade contributions to methane emissions, namely through the protein consumption requirements of a growing planetary population and, as the mean oceanic and atmospheric temperatures rise, methane release from microorganisms feeding on organic material and the release of methane from methane hydrate form will accelerate. This will be felt first, fastest, and hardest in the Arctic.
This image is beautiful – but it’s not an image we are widely familiar with. I show this for two reasons. First, it demonstrates that humanity is capable of great science. The second reason is that it clearly demonstrates that humans are extraordinarily gifted at thinking “outside” the box when faced with challenging tasks.This view of the Earth shows a wonderfully unique but physically impossible view of the southern hemisphere and Antarctica. While a spacecraft could find itself directly over the Earth's pole, roughly half of the image should be in darkness! This view was created by mosaicing together several images taken by Galileo over a 24 hour period and projecting them as they would be seen from above the pole. The continents of South America, Africa, and Australia are respectively seen at the middle left, upper right, and lower right. The slightly bluish ice and snow of Antarctica include large ice shelves (upper left, lower middle), a broad fan of broken offshore pack ice (lower left and middle) and continental glaciers protruding into the sea (lower right).Most spacecraft traveling near the Earth's poles are in very low Earth orbit, and cannot acquire panoramic shots like this one. Galileo's view of the southern hemisphere, combined with the spacecraft's special spectral properties (four separate narrowband filters that measure the brightness of reflected light at specific infrared wavelengths), led to a number of unique observations. For example, Galileo's cameras distinguished between ice and high stratospheric clouds, allowing scientists to study the correlation between these clouds and growth of the ozone hole.This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov. Image Credit: NASA/JPL Image Addition Date: 1997-09-10nental glaciers protruding into the sea (lower right). The regularly spaced weather systems are prominent.
There is evidence that greenhouse gas levels fell at the start of ice ages and rose during the retreat of the ice sheets, but it is difficult to establish cause and effect. What we do know is that the influence of these cycles on insolation (INcidentSOLarradiATION) at different latitudes has been calculated by Berger (1991), and Laskar (1993). In the Northern Hemisphere, peak summer insolation occurred about 9,000 years ago when the last of the large ice sheets melted. Since that time Northern Hemisphere summers have seen less solar radiation.Greenhouse gas levels may also have been affected by other factors which have been proposed as causes of ice ages, such as the movement of continents and volcanism. The Snowball Earth hypothesis maintains that the severe freezing in the late Proterozoic was ended by an increase in CO2 levels in the atmosphere, and some supporters of Snowball Earth argue that it was caused by a reduction in atmospheric CO2. The hypothesis also warns of future Snowball Earths.The August, 2009 edition of Science provides further evidence that changes in solar insolation provide the initial trigger for the Earth to warm after an Ice Age, with secondary factors like increases in greenhouse gases accounting for the magnitude of the change. The insolation into a surface is largest when the surface directly faces the Sun. As the angle increases between the direction at a right angle to the surface and the direction of the rays of sunlight, the insolation is reduced in proportion to the cosine of the angle.William Ruddiman has proposed the earlyanthropocene hypothesis, according to which the anthropocene era, as some people call the most recent period in the Earth's history when the activities of the human race first began to have a significant global impact on the Earth's climate and ecosystems, did not begin in the 18th century with the advent of the Industrial Era, but dates back to 8,000 years ago, due to intense farming activities of our early agrarian ancestors. It was at that time that atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations stopped following the periodic pattern of the Milankovitch cycles. In his overdue-glaciation hypothesis Ruddiman states that an incipient ice age would probably have begun several thousand years ago, but the arrival of that scheduled ice age was forestalled by the activities of early farmers.Clark, Peter U.; Dyke, Arthur S.; Shakun, Jeremy D.; Carlson, Anders E.; Clark, Jorie; Wohlfarth, Barbara; Mitrovica, Jerry X.; Hostetler, Steven W. et al. (2009), "The Last Glacial Maximum", Science325 (5941): 710–714
Milankovitch CyclesEccentricity – Eccentricity is not favourable to glaciation – periodicity 100,000 yearsEccentricity changes the shape of the Earth's orbit around the Sun. This constantly fluctuating, orbital shape ranges between more and less elliptical (0 to 5% ellipticity) on a cycle of about 100,000 years. These oscillations alter the distance from the Earth to the Sun, thus changing the distance the Sun's short wave radiation must travel to reach Earth, subsequently reducing or increasing the amount of radiation received at the Earth's surface in different seasons.Current Status: 3% variance estimated between nearest and farthest point and probably increases the solar energy received in Jan by aprox. 6%> than July. The most elliptical orbit would create a 20 to 30% greater range between nearest and furthest point a.k.a. Aphelion (furthest point) and Perihelion (closest point).Axial Tilt – Axial tilt is not favourable to glaciation – periodicity 41,000 yearsToday the Earth's axial tilt is about 23.5 degrees, which largely accounts for our seasons. Because of the periodic variations of this angle the severity of the Earth's seasons changes. With less axial tilt the Sun's solar radiation is more evenly distributed between winter and summer. However, less tilt also increases the difference in radiation receipts between the equatorial and polar regions. One hypothesis for Earth's reaction to a smaller degree of axial tilt is that it would promote the growth of ice sheets. This response would be due to a warmer winter, in which warmer air would be able to hold more moisture, and subsequently produce a greater amount of snowfall. In addition, summer temperatures would be cooler, resulting in less melting of the winter's accumulation. At present, axial tilt is in the middle of its range.Precession - precession is in the glacial mode – periodicity 23,000 yearsPrecessionis the Earth's slow wobble as it spins on axis. This wobbling of the Earth on its axis can be likened to a top running down, and beginning to wobble back and forth on its axis. The precession of Earth wobbles from pointing at Polaris (North Star) to pointing at the star Vega. When this shift to the axis pointing at Vega occurs, Vega would then be considered the North Star. This top-like wobble, or precession, has a periodicity of 23,000 years.Credit: Montana State University Department of Earth Sciences, Dr. William W. LockeA hypertext for the appreciation of glaciers, and how they work By the students in Geology 445 Glacial Geology - Spring, 1999
Climate forcing or “anthropogenic” causes began to create a large variation in climate temperature at the onset of the industrial age. Modern forcing catalysts include man-made aerosols, solar irradiance, and volcanic aerosols. The onset of the industrial age is clearly defined when all forcings are compared graphically with GHG forcing and the rise of global temperature.
There is substantial scientific evidence that anthropogenic causes are contributing to the rising mean global temperature. Some scientists suggest there is enough evidence to consider that we are now shifting from a
Glacier Deterioration : Pederson Glacier andthe Muir and Riggs Glaciers in AlaskaSometimes a picture speaks a thousand words. These photographs document a relatively short period of geologic time during a time when Milankovitch Cycles would predict ice sheet growth, and yet, we can see in evidence all around us, that glaciers are retreating on a planetary scale and at an accelerating pace.
Glacier Deterioration South Cascade range in Washington, USA.
The Grinnell Glacier in Montana, USA
US Geological Survey photo creditPhoto by Blase Reardon of the U.S. Geological Survey.
When the Larsen B Ice Shelf in Antarctica collapsed in 2002, the event appeared to be a sudden response to climate change, and this long, fringing ice shelf in the north west part of the Weddell Sea was assumed to be the latest in a long line of victims of Antarctic summer heat waves linked to Global Warming.Prof. Neil Glasser of Aberystwyth University, working as a Fulbright Scholar in the US, and Dr. Ted Scambos of University of Colorado’s National Snow and Ice Data Centre, in the Journal of Glaciology, say that the shelf was already teetering on collapse before the final summer.“Ice shelf collapse is not as simple as we first thought,” said Professor Glasser, lead author of the paper. “Because large amounts of meltwater appeared on the ice shelf just before it collapsed, we had always assumed that air temperature increases were to blame. But our new study shows that ice-shelf break up is not controlled simply by climate. A number of other atmospheric, oceanic and glaciological factors are involved. For example, the location and spacing of fractures on the ice shelf such as crevasses and rifts are very important too because they determine how strong or weak the ice shelf is”.The study is important because ice shelf collapse contributes to global sea level rise, albeit indirectly. “Ice shelves themselves do not contribute directly to sea level rise because they are floating on the ocean and they already displace the same volume of water. But when the ice shelves collapse the glaciers that feed them speed up and get thinner, so they supply more ice to the oceans,” Prof. Glasser explained.Professor Glasser acknowledges that global warming had a major part to play in the collapse, but emphasises that it is only one in a number of contributory factors, and despite the dramatic nature of the break-up in 2002, both observations by glaciologists and numerical modeling by other scientists at NASA and CPOM (Centre of Polar Observation and Modeling) had pointed to an ice shelf in distress for decades previously. “It’s likely that melting from higher ocean temperatures, or even a gradual decline in the ice mass of the Peninsula over the centuries, was pushing the Larsen to the brink”, said co-author Ted Scambos of University of Colorado’s National Snow and Ice Data Centre.
Much of the energy that drives the various Earth systems (climate systems, ecosystems, hydrologic systems, etc.) originates from the Sun. Solar energy is created at the core of the Sun when hydrogen atoms are fused into helium by nuclear fusion. For each second of this nuclear process, 700 million tons of hydrogen are converted into 695 million tons of helium. The remaining 5 million tons are turned into electromagnetic energy that radiates from the Sun's surface out into space.The radiative surface of the Sun, or photosphere, has an average temperature of about 58,00 Kelvins...Apx. (57,726 C or 103,940 F)The Earth's orbital path varies in the degree to which it is circular. This change in its "eccentricity" varies between 0.00 and 0.06 on a 100,000 year cycle. When the eccentricity equals 0.00 the orbital path is circular and when it is 0.06 the orbital path is slightly elliptical. The current value is 0.0167 and is not favourable to glaciation.
Volcanic ActivityVolcanic dust blasted into the atmosphere causes temporary cooling. The amount of cooling depends on the amount of dust put into the air, and the duration of the cooling depends on the size of the dust particles. Particles the size of sand grains fall out of the air in a matter of a few minutes and stay close to the volcano. These particles have little effect on the climate. Tiny dust-size ash particles thrown into the lower atmosphere will float around for hours or days, causing darkness and cooling directly beneath the ash cloud, but these particles are quickly washed out of the air by the abundant water and rain present in the lower atmosphere. However, dust tossed into the dry upper atmosphere, the stratosphere, can remain for weeks to months before they finally settle. These particles block sunlight and cause some cooling over large areas of the earth.Volcanic eruptions may send ash and sulphate gas high into the atmosphere. The sulphate may combine with water to produce tiny droplets (aerosols) of sulphuric acid, which reflect sunlight back into space. Large eruptions reach the middle stratosphere (19 miles to 30 kilometres high). At this altitude, the aerosols can spread around the world.A massive volcanic eruption can cool the Earth for one or two years. The 1982 El Chichon eruption and the 1991 Pinatubo eruption caused the globally averaged surface temperature to cool less than 1°F.
Volcanoes that release large amounts of sulphur compounds like sulphur oxide or sulphur dioxide affect the climate more strongly than those that eject just dust. The sulphur compounds are gases that rise easily into the stratosphere. Once there, they combine with the (limited) water available to form a haze of tiny droplets of sulphuric acid. These tiny droplets are very light in color and reflect a great deal of sunlight for their size. Although the droplets eventually grow large enough to fall to the earth, the stratosphere is so dry that it takes time, months or even years to happen. Consequently, reflective hazes of sulphur droplets can cause significant cooling of the Earth for as long as two years after a major sulphur-bearing eruption. sulphur hazes are believed to have been the primary cause of the global cooling that occurred after the Pinatubo and Tambora eruptions. For many months, a satellite tracked the sulphur cloud produced by Pinatubo. The image shows the cloud about three months after the eruption.Volcanoes also release large amounts of water and carbon dioxide. When these two compounds are in the form of gases in the atmosphere, they absorb heat radiation (infrared) emitted by the ground and hold it in the atmosphere. This causes the air below to get warmer. Therefore, you might think that a major eruption would cause a temporary warming of the atmosphere rather than a cooling. However, there are very large amounts of water and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere already, and even a large eruption doesn't change the global amounts very much. In addition, the water generally condenses out of the atmosphere as rain in a few hours to a few days, and the carbon dioxide quickly dissolves in the ocean or is absorbed by plants. Consequently, the sulphur compounds have a greater short-term effect, and cooling dominates. However, over long periods of time (thousands or millions of years), multiple eruptions of giant volcanoes, such as the flood basaltvolcanoes, can raise the carbon dioxide levels enough to cause significant global warming.
Changes in clouds result from changes in the distribution of water vapour, temperature, and winds. The effects of global warming on these factors are complex and not well understood. Met Office (UK gov) atmospheric research modeling predicts that low-level cloud cover over a test area decreased under global warming, creating positive feedback. This is apparently due to an increase in sea-surface temperatures and weakening of the large-scale atmospheric circulation. While this provides a significant step in understanding the link between low-level cloud and climate change, there are still no conclusive answers according to the Met Office.Further research indicates that aerosols may also play a role in cloud formation. Tiny aerosol particles can “seed” clouds by providing the “nuclei” around which cloud droplets are formed. High concentrations of some aerosol types may affect the character of clouds by causing many tiny droplets to form rather than a few big ones. Clouds with more tiny droplets reflect more solar energy and tend to produce less rainfall. This spectacular “blue marble” image is a detailed true-color image of the entire Earth. Using a collection of satellite-based observations, scientists and visualizers stitched together months of observations of the land surface, oceans, sea ice, and clouds into a seamless, true-color mosaic of every square kilometre of our planet. These images are freely available to educators, scientists, museums, and the public.Much of the information contained in this image came from a single remote-sensing device-NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS. Flying over 700 km above the Earth onboard the Terra satellite, MODIS provides an integrated tool for observing a variety of terrestrial, oceanic, and atmospheric features of the Earth. The land and coastal ocean portions of these images are based on surface observations collected from June through September 2001 and combined, or composited, every eight days to compensate for clouds that might block the sensor’s view of the surface on any single day. Two different types of ocean data were used in these images: shallow water true color data, and global ocean color (or chlorophyll) data. Topographic shading is based on the GTOPO 30 elevation dataset compiled by the U.S. Geological Survey’s EROS Data Center. MODIS observations of polar sea ice were combined with observations of Antarctica made by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s AVHRR sensor—the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer. The cloud image is a composite of two days of imagery collected in visible light wavelengths and a third day of thermal infra-red imagery over the poles. Terra/MODIS Visualization Date2002-02-08 The Visible Earth is part of the EOS Project Science Office, Goddard Space Flight Center.Low Level Met Office Credit: Clement, A.C., Burgman, R. and Norris, J.R., 2009: Observational and model evidence for positive low-level cloud feedback. Science, 325, 460-464, DOI: 10.1126/science.1171255 .
Methane (CH4) is the second largest GHG that is produced due to human activity. In addition to the methane produced from the increasing demand for protein in developing countries, land is often deforested in order to accommodate the production of protein, thus accelerating climate change.
The U.S. Department of Energy NCAR Climate Model makes a prediction based on GHG emissions without substantial curbs... a.k.a. Business as Usual (BAU) model. With this extrapolation, the expected precipitation changes can be considered to be substantial. This is likely to present in the form of single storm events and overall, year over year, precipitation increases. The impact is likely to be felt in municipal infrastructure from waterways and sewer systems to snow removal.
This is the analysis assuming .5 meter sea level rise by 2070 of the top 20 port cities by population.
The B.C. Government has received a report that projects sea level rise in order to create mitigation strategies for coastal areas.
Top 10 countries exposed by assets exposed assuming a .5 meter rise in sea level by 2070.
China, India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, and the United States are the top five countries whose population will be exposed to factors related to climate change in coastal areas.
Miami is the most at risk – with approximately 400 billion at risk to day. This is expected to move towards 3.5 trillion in exposure by 2070. This presumes a global sea level rise of .5 meters by 2070
CO2 CO2 is still, after significant scientific analysis, widely considered to be the largest contributing factor to climate change. Scientists have estimated the contribution to warming made by a range of gases, dust and solar radiation. They have a high level of certainty that greenhouse gases contribute the most to warming, with increases in CO2 as the greatest contributor with about 1.4 watts/meter2.Aerosols Methane, nitrous oxide, and halocarbons make smaller contributions. Scientists have a lower level of certainty about the contributions of reductions in stratospheric ozone and increases in tropospheric aerosols, which cool the Earth by 0.3 watts/meter2 and 0.9 watts/meter2 respectively. Solar radiation may also contribute to warming but scientists have a very low certainty about the level of this contribution.
Human Systems - CO2CO2 accounts for approximately 70% of anthropogenic contribution to GHG’s. The image above shows the estimated impact from the preindustrial era to the present, measured in watts/metre2.Other major anthropogenic emissions include Methane (CH4), Nitrous Oxide (N2O), and various gases that have a high global warming potential (GWP).
Clearly, there can be positive change and the human species is capable of making positive changes that do have global impact. The Montreal Protocol is an important example of this.
The Vienna Convention for the Protocol of the Ozone layer treaty was opened for signature on September 16, 1987, and entered into force on January 1, 1989As a result of the Montreal Protocol and its amendments, the concentrations of ozone-depleting substances in the lower atmosphere (troposphere) peaked around 1995 and are decreasing in both the troposphere and stratosphere. It is estimated these gases reached peak levels in the Antarctica stratosphere in 2001. However, these ozone-depleting substances typically have very long lifetimes in the atmosphere (more than 40 years). As a result of this slow decline, the ozone hole is estimated to annually very slowly decrease in area by about 0.1 to 0.2 percent for the next five to 10 years. This slow decrease is masked by large year-to-year variations caused by Antarctic stratospheric weather fluctuations. The recently completed 2006 World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion concluded the ozone hole recovery would be masked by annual variability for the near future and the ozone hole would fully recover in approximately 2065.http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/ozone_record.html
CFC-11 levels have peaked and decreased. This represents the value of global collaboration.Although there are now quantitative constraints on the global magnitude of the emissions of some GHG’s, only educated guesses can be made as to the relative importance of their individual sources: enteric (cattle, etc.) and soil (rice, etc.) methanogens, biomass burning, fossil fuel mining, clathrates, etc. for CH4; soil and oceanic denitrifiers, biomass and fossil fuel combustion, etc. for N2O.The Montreal Protocol demonstrates that human systems intervention is possible and can achieve positive results.
CFC-12 stabilization and reduction is also seen
Some scientists estimate400 gigatons of methane locked in the frozen arctic tundra may be enough to start a chain reaction. The kind of warming the Arctic Council predicts is sufficient to melt the clathrates and release substantial quantities of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere.A growing body of data shows that more methane is emanating from the rapidly thawing Arctic Ocean than previously thought. This has caught the attention of many climate scientists. There are concerns that vast releases of huge quantities of sub-sea Arctic methane long trapped by a permafrost layer could accelerate climate change at unprecedented rates. In recent years, climate scientists have been concerned about a so-called “methane time bomb” on land, which would be detonated when warming Arctic temperatures melt permafrost and cause frozen vegetation in peat bogs and other areas to decay, releasing methane and carbon dioxide. Now come fears of a methane time bomb, part two, this one bursting from the sea floor of the shallow Arctic continental shelf. The Arctic sea floor contains a rich, decayed layer of vegetation from earlier eras when the continental shelf was not underwater.
This scenario could ultimately lead to mass extinction most planetary species, including humans.According to Gregory Ryskin, associate professor of chemical engineering at Northwestern University, "explosive clouds of methane gas, initially trapped in stagnant bodies of water and suddenly released, could have killed off the majority of marine life and land animals and plants at the end of the Permian era" — long before dinosaurs lived and died. Ryskin believes that methane may have been the driving force in previous catastrophic changes of the earth's climate, where 95 percent of marine species and 70 percent of land species were lost in - geologically speaking - the blink of an eye.Once triggered, this cycle could result in runaway global warming. Strong geologic evidence suggests something similar has happened at least twice before.The most recent of these catastrophes occurred about 55 million years ago in what geologists call the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), when methane burps caused rapid warming and massive die-offs, disrupting the climate for more than 100,000 years.The granddaddy of these catastrophes occurred 251 million years ago, at the end of the Permian period, when a series of methane burps came close to wiping out all life on Earth.More than 94 percent of the marine species present in the fossil record disappeared suddenly as oxygen levels plummeted and life teetered on the verge of extinction. Over the ensuing 500,000 years, a few species struggled to gain a foothold in the hostile environment. It took 20 million to 30 million years for even rudimentary coral reefs to re-establish themselves and for forests to regrow. In some areas, it took more than 100 million years for ecosystems to reach their former healthy diversity.
Few national scientific leaders are talking about the possibility of massive methane release from the Arctic as global temperatures warm. The most notable issue is related to Arctic warming where massive amounts of organic content is stored. As the temperatures rise and the organic material begins to be consumed by microbes, they will emit methane which will be released into the atmosphere.
Regardless of the arguments for and against the relative factors that impact global climate change, the fact that it is happening is indisputable. Glacial deterioration and polar ice cap deterioration are both well documented. Accordingly, it becomes increasingly clear that humanity must seek, through science, rational policy, and political solutions, a logical strategy to mitigate and reduce the human driven components of global climate change.
As of March 2009, CO2 in the Earth’s Atmosphere was at a concentration of 387 parts per million by volume. Carbon dioxide has no liquid state at pressures below 5.1 atmospheres. At 1 atmosphere (near mean sea level pressure), the gas deposits directly to a solid at temperatures below -78 °C and the solid sublimes directly to a gas above -78 °C. In its solid state, carbon dioxide is commonly called dry ice.
Why the Fluctuation in the Annual Cycle?Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide fluctuate slightly with the change of the seasons, driven primarily by seasonal plant growth in the Northern Hemisphere. Concentrations of carbon dioxide fall during the northern spring and summer as plants consume the gas, and rise during the northern autumn and winter as plants go dormant, die and decay. Due to human systems such as the combustion of fossil fuels and deforestation, the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased by about 35% since the industrial age. Emissions of CO2 by human activities are currently more than 130 times greater than the quantity emitted by volcanoes, amounting to about 27 billion tonnes per year.The oceansThere is about 50 times as much carbon dissolved in the oceans in the form of CO2 and carbonic acid, bicarbonate and carbonate ions as exists in the atmosphere. The oceans act as an enormous carbon sink, having "absorbed about one-third of all human-generated CO2 emissions to date.” Gas solubility decreases as the temperature of water increases and therefore the rate of uptake from the atmosphere decreases as ocean temperatures rise.Most of the CO2 taken up by the ocean forms carbonic acid in equilibrium with bicarbonate and carbonate ions. Some is consumed in photosynthesis by organisms in the water, and a small proportion of that sinks and leaves the carbon cycle. Increased CO2 in the atmosphere has led to increasing acidity (strictly, decreasing alkalinity) of seawater and there is some concern that this may adversely affect organisms living in the water. In particular, with decreasing alkalinity, the availability of carbonates for forming shells decreases.
Ice Core data supports the trend progression of data points gathered since 1958 at Mauna Loa.Analysis of proxy records, such as gas bubbles trapped in glacial ice, at a variety of places throughout the world suggests that the atmospheric concentration of CO2 has varied considerably over geologic time but generally remained in the range 280 +/- 10 ppm for several thousand years prior to the onset of the industrial era. Over the 420,000 years preceding the industrial era the concentration appears not to have exceeded 300 ppm (Barnola et al., 1999)An Italian monitoring site on Lampedusa Island, just south of Sicily, shows an increase from 360.8 ppm in 1993 to 371.3 ppm in 2000 (Chamard et al., 2001)(Figure1), and the CDIAC data files (http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov) contain records from over 50 different sampling sites. It seems clear that the atmospheric concentration of CO2 is increasing and that it is now in a range that has not been experienced for perhaps 20 million years (IPCC, 2001).Source: THE INCREASING CONCENTRATION OF ATMOSPHERIC CO2: HOW MUCH, WHEN, AND WHY?Gregg Marland and Tom Boden, Environmental Sciences DivisionOak Ridge National Laboratory
This picture shows the Earth’s carbon “metabolism”, the rate at which plants absorbed carbon out of the atmosphere during the years 2001 and 2002. The map shows the global, annual average of the net productivity of vegetation on land and productivity of the oceanic carbon sink. Simply stated, the largest carbon sink rates of consumption are in Red and Yellow where carbon absorption rates can range from 2 to 3 kilograms of carbon consumed per square kilometre annually. Green areas reflect intermediate rates of carbon absorption. Blue and Purple areas represent lower rates of absorption while the areas of grey, such as the Arctic or Antarctic, are at the bottom of the scale.Although tropical rainforests are the chief carbon sinks on Earth, oceanic organisms still absorb about the same amount, making the ocean roughly as productive as the land. Unfortunately, climate change is reducing ocean life and as such, lessening the impact oceans have on the global carbon cycle.Carbon sinks are different ways that carbon dioxide is taken out of the atmosphere. Plants and algae take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and the oceans absorb carbon dioxide. These different mechanisms are referred to as carbon sinks. For millennia, the system of carbon sinks around the planet maintained a relative balance in the system.The last few centuries have ushered in a rapid growth in carbon dioxide emissions, largely from coal and subsequent to the coal age, oil and gas have added to the growth. Rapidly growing economic capacity in coal driven energy regions are placing strong and rapid upward pressure on carbon dioxide emissions.
The coastal waters of the Eastern Pacific are productive because wind and ocean currents allow nutrient-rich water from deep in the ocean to rise to the surface. The cold, rising water carries phosphates and nitrates, which act as fertilizer to the phytoplankton that grow in the sunlit waters at the ocean’s surface. Since phytoplankton are the base of the food chain, areas that support large phytoplankton blooms tend to have large fish populations.Off the coast of Vancouver Island, phytoplankton blooms tend to happen when winds blow down the coast from the north. The winds push the ocean’s surface water west, out to sea. Deep water rises up to replace the wind-blown surface water, and it carries the nutrients needed to support phytoplankton blooms.Charles G. Trick, et al, from the University of Western Ontario investigated everal species of diatoms and the genus Pseudonitzschia. This genus was found to produce domoic acid. Phytoplankton use this acid to fuel growth, but it is also highly toxic to many marine mammals and humans. Large blooms of Pseudonitzschia in coastal waters have implicated the toxin in the poisoning of sea lions via tainted shellfish. Studies suggest that when such phytoplankton blooms occur in mid-ocean waters, they do not produce the toxin. The mid-ocean water finding was disputed by Dr. Trick who said his Pseudonitzschia collected in mid-ocean and subjected to shipboard experiments produced plenty of domoic acid. 'We found there is a lot of toxin out there,' he said. These two viewpoints underscore the intense complexity of global oceanic ecosystems.
This slide gives you an idea of the amount of CO2 emissions per fuel type and adjusted for an equivalent heating value.
Contrast emissions data from 4 countries (USA, Italy, Norway, and China) Illustrate how the different countries and their varying economies and access to resources are reflected in their CO2 emissions. The table shows that per capita emissions from the USA are nearly 3 times those of the 2 European countries and 9 times those of China. Part of the differences among countries is seen in row 3 of the table, which reveals that China is the most dependent on coal while Norway derives a large fraction of its total energy supply from non-fossil sources. Row 4 of Table 2 gives insight into the structures and efficiencies of the economies. Countries with larger contributions from the primary and heavy, and hence energy-intensive, industries will have high emissions per unit of GDP while those in which the information and service industries play a larger role will have lower emissions per unit of GDP. Similarly, an economy characterized by low efficiency will have higher emissions per unit of GDP.
The US, as the second largest producer of CO2 emissions, will likely continue to battle with emissions, especially from coal fired electricity. The US Department of Energy notes that technological advancements have been realized in the last five years, the United States is eager to demonstrate carbon capture and storage technology on commercial plants that when operational, will be the cleanest coal-fired plants in the world.With such a huge part of the US electric power complex being fuelled by coal, and given that the US has the largest coal reserves in the World, it is likely that the US will continue to seek to establish clean coal technologies that, if modeled after existing clean coal plants in the US, may well involve extensive carbon dioxide capture and sequestration technologies.
China's GDP carbon dioxide emissions will rise with the growth of a middle class and wealth generation created by economic prosperity - China is likely to build a lot of coal fired plants.Other countries, like India, where coal is a primary fuel for energy, will continue to advance economically and increase their GDP carbon dioxide production - and they are equally likely to build more coal driven energy plants in order to accelerate economic growthPer GDP carbon dioxide production in the USA during the last decade has remained fairly constant, this pattern is repeated across most of the developed countries.Recent data indicates the growth in China's CO2 emissions are far outpacing previous estimates, making the goal of stabilizing atmospheric greenhouse gases even more difficult, according to a new analysis by economists at the University of California, Berkeley, and UC San Diego.Previous estimates, including those used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), say the region that includes China will see a 2.5 to 5 percent annual increase in CO2 emissions, the largest contributor to atmospheric greenhouse gases, between 2004 and 2010. The new UC analysis puts that annual growth rate for China to at least 11 percent for the same time period.
China emits more CO2 than any other country and it is growing emissions faster than any other country. Recent studies indicate that between 2004 and 2010, China’s emission growth rate will be closer to 11% instead of the forecasted 2.5 to 5% used in various protocols including Kyoto. Conservative forecasts place Chinese CO2 emission growth to be 600 million metric tonnes more than in the year 2000. This 600 million additional tonnes compares to the 116 million metric tons of emission reductions pledged by all the countries that signed the Kyoto Protocol.The United states was the largest single emitter of CO2 until 2006 when China took over as the leading carbon dioxide emitting country. China currently produces over 70% of its energy requirements through coal generated power and over 80% of China's electricity is derived from coal. China now builds the equivalent of two new coal-fired 500 Megawatt power plants every week. China leverages coal due to the abundance of the resource and also because it is far less expensive to use compared to an energy unit derived from gas or petroleumChina has the third largest coal reserves in the World. For China, coal is very cost effective per unit of energy compared to other energy alternatives. China gives priority to economic growth and is unlikely to agree to absolute ceilings. Given the population of China, it is likely they will advocate for per capita emissions.
OECD dataThe United States had the most emissions until 2006. Analyzed on a per capita basis, both Canada and the United States produce GHG’s at a rate nearly four times that of China on a per capita basis.
This is an image that conveys carbon dioxide emissions on a per capita basis. The “redder” the colour, the higher the gross emissions per capita.
This graph gives a view of how it looks with US, BRIC, and a few other countries that have significant emissions.Note that China and the United States drive about half the emissions on a global scale.
Leveraging carbon dioxide sequestration, the growth in oil-sands carbon emissions can be turned back to the point where the carbon footprint of a barrel of Canadian synthetic crude will be smaller than the carbon footprint of a barrel of Saudi Light.
Bit of perspective and link to a free carbon footprint calculator