Climate

Anomolies

Angus Chu, PhD, PEng, Centre for

Environmental Engineering Research
and Education, Department of Civil
Engineering, The Schulich School of
Engineering, The University of Calgary
Global Water withdrawal
Estimate the average temperature that the earth would have if it had no atmosphere:
• Answer 5°C (41°F)
• Approximately 10°C (18°F) below the observed average surface temperature of earth
(15°C)
• Therefore not effect of atmosphere ­ 10°C.
• Therefore atmosphere blocks a higher proportion of the outgoing radiation than it does of
the incoming radiation.
• Clouds block some amount of incoming and outgoing radiation.
• Not true for clean air (CO2, H2O, CH4).

If incoming and outgoing radiant energies were the same, these gases would block equal
amounts in both directions. Incoming and outgoing wavelength are quite different.
• Climate change has long-since ceased to be a scientific curiosity, and is no
longer just one of many environmental and regulatory concerns.

• scientists have observed that over the 20th century, the mean global
surface temperature increased by 0.6 °C.

• September Arctic ice is now declining at a rate of 11.5% per decade. Arctic
sea ice reaches its minimum in September. The September 2010 extent
was the third lowest in the satellite record.

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Minimum arctic sea-ice extent from 1979 to 2007

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Greenland ice-melt since 1979

 • Ice-loss from glaciers and ice sheets has continued, leading, for example, to the
second straight year with an ice-free passage through Canada's Arctic islands, and
accelerating rates of ice-loss from ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica.

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• Combined with thermal expansion – warm water occupies more volume than cold –
the melting of ice sheets and glaciers around the world is contributing to rates and
an ultimate extent of sea-level rise that could far outstrip those anticipated in the
most recent global scientific assessment.

• Just in the last 650,000 years there have been seven cycles of glacial advance and
retreat, with the abrupt end of the last ice age about 7000 years ago marking the
beginning of the modern climate era – and of human civilization
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The evidence for rapid climate change (IPCC Fourth Assessment Report) is compelling:

(1)Sea-level rise: Global sea-level rose about 17 cm (6.7 in.) in the last century. The rate in the
last decade, however, is nearly double that of the last century.
(2)Global temperature rise: Most of this warming has occurred since the 1970s, with the 20
warmest years having occurred since 1981 and with all 10 of the warmest years occurring in
the past 12 years.
(3)Warming oceans: The oceans have absorbed much of this increased heat, with the top
700 m (about 2300 ft.) of ocean showing warming of 0.302° Fahrenheit since 1969.
(4)Shrinking ice sheets: The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have decreased in mass. Data
from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment show Greenland lost 150–250 km3 (36–
60 cubic miles) of ice per year between 2002 and 2006, while Antarctica lost about
152 km3 (36 cubic miles) of ice between 2002 and 2005.
(5)Declining Arctic sea ice: Both the extent and thickness of Arctic sea ice has declined rapidly
over the last several decades.
(6)Glacial retreat: Glaciers are retreating almost everywhere around the world – including in
the Alps, Himalayas, Andes, Rockies, Alaska and Africa.
(7)Ocean acidification: Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the acidity of surface
ocean waters has increased by about 30%. The amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by the
upper layer of the oceans is increasing by about 2 billion tons per year.

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Carbon Sequestration

Geologic carbon sequestration is the injection of anthropogenic carbon dioxide in to

deep geologic formations where it is intended to remain indefinitely. If successfully
implemented, geologic carbon sequestration will have little or no impact on terrestrial
ecosystems aside from the mitigation of climate change.

One strategy for mitigating the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide is to expand
the size of the terrestrial carbon sink, particularly forests, essentially using trees as
biological scrubbers. The Kyoto protocol to the framework convention on climate
change includes many provisions for forest and land-use carbon sequestration
projects and activities in its signatories’ overall GHG mitigation plans.

when they die

Release 102
The potential for developing synergies between climate change mitigation and
adaptation has become a recent focus of both climate research and policy. There are
also increasing calls for research to define the optimal mix of mitigation and
adaptation

A positive relationship between CO2 emissions, the most important GHG implicated in
global warming and GDP was shown by Michael Tucker, examining the per capita
income and CO2 emissions of 137 countries across 21 years and predicted that higher
income levels lead to increase demand for environmental protection
Carbon Tax
The Third Assessment Report published by the IPCC in 2001 states, ‘there is new
and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is
attributable to human activities’
The Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs), which are used for making projections
based on these factors, describe four different 21st century pathways of GHG emissions and
atmospheric concentrations, air pollutant emissions and land use. The RCPs include a
stringent mitigation scenario (RCP2.6), two intermediate scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP6.0) and
one scenario with very high GHG emissions (RCP8.5).
Using this ancient evidence, scientists have built a record of Earth’s past
climates, or “paleoclimates.” The paleoclimate record combined with global
models shows past ice ages as well as periods even warmer than today. But
the paleoclimate record also reveals that the current climatic warming is
occurring much more rapidly than past warming events.
Models predict that Earth will warm between 2 and 6 degrees Celsius in the
next century. When global warming has happened at various times in the
past two million years, it has taken the planet about 5,000 years to warm 5
degrees. The predicted rate of warming for the next century is at least 20
times faster. This rate of change is extremely unusual.
Figure 13: Observed and modeled Arctic sea-ice
extent
Figure 14: Observed Antarctic
Warming Trend (°C/decade) from
1957-2006
Figure 16: Sea-level change 1970-2010
Figure 21: Reconstructed, observed and future
warming projections
 Thank You
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