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Understanding Climate Change: Long-Term Trends and Impacts in Green Bay (1887-2002)

This analysis explores the long-term climatic trends observed in Green Bay from 1887 to 2002, emphasizing the difference between climate and weather. It discusses greenhouse gases, their effects, and the implications of climate variability, including historical records and paleoclimatology. The document addresses misconceptions around climate change, concluding that while the topic is complex, it is crucial to address and understand to make informed decisions about our future. Attention is given to the role of greenhouse effects, historical climate patterns, and their potential future implications.

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Understanding Climate Change: Long-Term Trends and Impacts in Green Bay (1887-2002)

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Presentation Transcript

  1. Climate and Climate Change

  2. Climate is what you expect and weather is what you get

  3. Green Bay 1977-2002

  4. Green Bay 1887-2002

  5. Green Bay 1887-2002

  6. Green Bay 1887-2002

  7. Long-Term Trends

  8. Long-Term Trends

  9. Long-Term Trends

  10. Long-Term Trends

  11. Long-Term Trends

  12. Some Conclusions • This is not as easy as the media make it seem • The fact that it’s not easy doesn’t excuse us from dealing with it • The fact that something can’t be proven conclusively doesn’t protect you if you make the wrong decision • Don’t confuse reasoning with reality

  13. Greenhouse Effect

  14. Negative Greenhouse Effect

  15. Positive and Negative Greenhouse Effects Positive Greenhouse Effect • Light enters • IR trapped: Warming Negative Greenhouse Effect • Light Blocked • IR can leave: Cooling • Titan

  16. Greenhouse Gases • Water Vapor • Carbon Dioxide • Methane • Nitrous and Nitric Oxides • Ozone • Transparent to visible light but absorb infrared

  17. What Color is Water?

  18. Infrared Absorption

  19. Carbon Dioxide • Has doubled to 350 ppm since start of Industrial Revolution • Coupled to Temperature Rise? • More Cloud Cover? • Taken up by biomass? • Taken up by oceans?

  20. Paleoclimatology • The present is the key to the past – but • The past is also the key to the present • Study of ancient climates • Have to rely on proxy measurements • How to convert qualitative data to numbers?

  21. Ancient Paleoclimatology • Oxygen 18 • Fossils • Evaporites • Glacial Indicators • Air bubbles in amber

  22. Earth’s Climatic History • Faint Early Sun • Anoxic Atmosphere • Advent of Life – UV Protection? • 2.3 by Glaciation • 2 b.y. Oxygen Threshold • End of Iron Formations • First Red Sandstones • Snowball Earth

  23. Earth’s Climatic History • Cambrian Explosion • Ordovician Ice Age • Advent of Forests • Permian Ice Age • Cretaceous Warm Period • Eocene Warm Period • Pleistocene Ice Age

  24. Recent Paleoclimatology • Historic Records • Tree Rings • Pollen Studies • Oxygen 18 • Ice Cores

  25. Holocene Climate • 11,000 Younger Dryas Cooling • 9,000-6,000 Mid-Holocene Warm Period (“Climatic Optimum”) • 900-1300 AD – Medieval Warm Period • 1300-1450 Little Ice Age I • 1450-1550 Recovery • 1550-1800 Little Ice Age II

  26. Effects of Global Warming • More Heat Extremes • Drought • Rise in Sea Level • Temporary Severe Cold Spell? • Rapid Migration of Ecological Zones • More Biomass but Lower Nutritional Value

  27. Not a Bad Thing? • Reduced Energy Demands • Longer Growing Seasons • More Biomass • More Habitable Land

  28. Ozone Stratosphere – Good • Absorbs solar ultraviolet Troposphere – Bad • Toxic • Contributes to air pollution

  29. Ozone Depletion • Cl stripped off synthetic molecules by solar ultraviolet • Cl reacts with ozone, acts as catalyst • Cl – CF3 (Freon) 360 • Cl – CCl3 (Carbon tetrachloride) 294 • Cl – H (Hydrochloric Acid) 431

  30. Smog

  31. Particulate Matter

  32. Long-Term Climatic Trends • Brightening of the Sun • Capturing of CO2 by carbonate rocks? • Moist greenhouse effect • Runaway CO2 Greenhouse Effect • Venus conditions

  33. The Goldilocks Problem • Venus is too hot • Mars is too cold • Earth is Just Right

  34. Planetary Habitable Zones • Primarily in the Liquid Water Zone • Can’t be too warm • Water Vapor in upper atmosphere broken down by solar UV and charged particles (photodissociation) • Hydrogen escapes to space

  35. The Ultimate Long-Term Forecast • Slow warming trend for the next billion years • Increasing humidity • CO2 decrease leads to extinction of plants? • Boiling and evaporation of the oceans

  36. Planetary Habitable Zones

  37. The Oreo Model of Life History • Micro-organism Earth (0-3 billion years) • Multicellular Earth (3-5 billion years) • Micro-organism Earth (5-6 billion years) • “The white creamy middle”

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