Another high-quality presentation about climate change in Houston, by the venerable Dr. Ronald L. Sass, Professor Emeritus Rice University. Like most academic treatments of the topics covered, only that known with high certainty is reported. There are far more uncertainties that science has not yet pinned down, but that empirical investigations of the past have shown to be worrisome, potentially catastrophic for coastal civilization within a human lifetime. The reader is left to other sources and to their own developing understanding of the immense complexities of rapid climate feedback interactions to imagine the meaning to Houston of the topic covered by Dr. Sass at the conference. Still, an excellent and authoritative place for Houston to begin!

1. Dr. Ron Sass Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Rice University Dr. Brad Hoge Department of Natural Science University of Houston-Downtown Energy Production’s Impact on Global Climate Change

4. Global Carbon Cycle From "Energy Futures" - a publication of the Natural Resources Defense Council and Uncommon Sense, Inc.

5. The global carbon cycle involves the earth's atmosphere, fossil fuels, the oceans, and the vegetation and soils of the earth's terrestrial ecosystems. From Richard Houghton, Senior Scientist, Carbon Research, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute

6. The Water Cycle

7. Anthropogenic Gases

8. The dramatic increase in carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere over the past 150 years (from about 280 parts per million to about 360 parts per million) is largely due to anthropogenic (human-caused) effects ( IPCC 1995 ).

9. The increase in atmospheric CO2 corresponds to annual fossil fuel emissions.

10. One can also observe that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the mean annual global temperature have been increasing since the end of the last ice age approximately 10,000 years ago. Figure 4. CO2 Concentration. The Clinton White House from Neftel et al & Keeling

11. Through the study of ancient ice cores from Antarctica both the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and Global Mean Annual Temperature can be determined for the past 160 thousand years of the earth's history. Figure 3. CO2 and Temperature. The Clinton White House from Barnola et al., Vostok Ice Core

14. Factors Affecting our Atmosphere

15. Atmospheric Carbon Budget

16. Climate Modelling

17. Human Impact

24. Impact on Humans

28. Biomass

29. Changes in Land Use

30. Most of the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations came from and will continue to come from the use of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas) for energy, but about 25% of the increase over the last 150 years came from changes in land use , for example, the clearing of forests and the cultivation of soils for food production. From Richard Houghton, Senior Scientist, Carbon Research, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute