On the Urgency for Action on Climate Change

1. On the Urgency for Action on Climate Change Eric Grimsrud Emeritus Professor of Chemistry Montana State University Now living in Bigfork, MT contact: ericgrimsrud.com

2. Background: Raised in Zumbrota, Minnesota, (ZHS 1962) St. Olaf College (BA 1966). University of Wisconsin (PhD in Analytical Chemistry, 1970). Post Doctoral Research, University of Alberta, Chemistry (1970-73). Research Associate, Washington State University, Pullman, Laboratory for Atmospheric Research (1973-75). Assistant, Associate and Full Professor of Chemistry, Montana State University, (1975 – 2004). Visiting Professor, University of Alberta (1984-85). Visiting Professor, Washington State University (2004). Professor Emeritus, MSU, Bozeman, 2004 to present. Dean of Math and Science, Columbia Basin Community College, Pasco Washington (2004-2006). Presently retired, part-time teaching, scientific writing, public presentations, grandparenting, carpentry, and golf-tennis-hiking-skiing. Web site: ericgrimsrud.com

3. A free e-version of this book is available upon request via the “contact” tab on ericgrimsrud.com. For paper back or hardcover copy, see web site or Amazon.com.

4. Chapter 5: Lessons of the Chlorofluorocarbon / Stratospheric Ozone Controversy A tale of: Scientific discovery in 1974 (theory at UC Irvine and first measurements at WSU and MSU). Industrial Denial (Dupont) between 1974 and 1985. The “smoking gun” – Antarctic “Ozone Hole” in 1985. Dupont “comes to the rescue” (while making another fortune on CFC replacements). Atmospheric CFCs are now just beginning to decrease (with 100 year half-lives). Without this science, we would have been “toast” by now (for two reasons). In the words of Yoggi Berra, the global warming issue feels like “déjà vu all over again” to me – but on a much larger scale

5. The Science behind Anthropogenic (man-caused) Global Warming is not so difficult to understand Consider the question: Is the world flat or is it round? Just as most of us can answer that question on our own, all of us can also assess for ourselves the reality and urgency of the AGW problem.

6. In explaining science, things should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler. Albert Einstein

7. Our Atmosphere and its Essential Functions • filters out UV light • increases surface • temperatures • cleans itself • others? • But first, note how thin the • atmosphere is • H1/2 = 3.4 mi = 5.6 Km

8. Outline of this presentation: • The two factors that determine the Temperature of the Earth. • The Notion of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). • Have we converted a lot of Geological Carbon to Biological Carbon? • Does the Biological Carbon go back to Geological Carbon? • Is atmospheric CO2 increasing? • So what? Lessons of the Ice Core Record. • Is the Earth’s temperature rising? • But other factors also affect climate. • What is the “Sensitivity” of CO2 - this is what the argument is all about. • What level of CO2 might be OK? The Ocean Bottom Core Record. • How can we possibly get back to 350 ppm ??? • Questions.

9. Outline of this presentation: • The two factors that determine the heating and cooling of the Earth. • The Notion of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). • Have we converted a lot of Geological Carbon to Biological Carbon? • Does the Biological Carbon go back to Geological Carbon? • Is atmospheric CO2 increasing? • So what? The Ice Core Record. • Is the Earth’s temperature rising? • But other factors also affect climate. • What is the “Sensitivity” of CO2 - this is what the argument is all about. • What level of CO2 might be OK? The Ocean Bottom Core Record. • How can we possibly get back to 350 ppm???? • Questions and comments.

10. (1) The Earth is heated by the Electromagnetic Radiation coming from the Sun. But not all of that incoming sunlight sticks – due to the albedoof the Earth.

11. The albedo of the Earth is the fraction of incoming solar radiation that is reflected back out into space. The average albedo of the Earth is presently about 0.30. During the last glacial period, it was about 0.33. During the “Snowball Earth” period, It was about 0.9

12. (2) The Earth cools itself by the emission of Electromagnetic Radiation of longer wavelength (called Infrared Radiation, IR) But only a small portion of that outgoing infrared radiation is emitted from the surface of the Earth. – due to the Green House Effect.

13. =+73 F Only about 6 % of the IR emitted from the Earth’s surface makes it out.

14. Note that Infrared radiation is also emitted downward from the atmosphere to the Earth’s surface by the GHG’s Taken from the Earth’s surface looking up H2O (Evans 2006).

16. Which molecules are greenhouse gases? All molecules having 3 or more atoms. Why? Because they have asymmetrical vibrational modes of motion that cause the location of their electrons to change as the molecule vibrates. If the frequency of that vibration happens to be the same as the frequency of the IR radiation, then that IR radiation will be absorbed by that molecule.

17. Composition of Lower Atmosphere

19. Atmospheric lifetimes of the major GHG’s

21. Outline of this presentation: • The two factors that determine the heating and cooling of the Earth. • The Notion of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). • Have we converted a lot of Geological Carbon to Biological Carbon? • Does the Biological Carbon go back to Geological Carbon? • Is atmospheric CO2 increasing? • So what? The Ice Core Record. • Is the Earth’s temperature rising? • But other factors also affect climate. • What is the “Sensitivity” of CO2 - this is what the argument is all about. • What level of CO2 might be OK? The Ocean Bottom Core Record. • How can we possibly get back to 350 ppm???? • Questions.

22. theory and predictions concerning changes in greenhouse gas concentrations.

23. Svante Arrhenius Sweden, 1859-1927 Founder of Physical Chemistry Nobel Prize in 1903 In 1896, he began to ponder the effects of fossil fuel combustion. Could Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) be occurring?

24. A Common Sense View of AGW GC BC before 1850 slow slow biological forms of carbon geological forms of carbon coal, oil and gas and limestone CO2 in air, CO2 in oceans and C in plants, soil and animals Prior to the industrial revolution, the exchange between GC and BC was very slow in BOTH directions

25. after 1850 GC BC FAST! still slow biological forms of carbon geological forms of carbon coal, oil and gas and limestone CO2 in air, CO2 in oceans and C in plants, soil and animals BC will increase and the excess will not return to GC for a very long time. Plants might like the excess BC, but the atmosphere and oceans do not.

26. “business as usual” models "Image created by Robert A. Rohde / Global Warming Art"

27. But enough of that “theory” stuff! After all, as Yogi Berra also once pointed out: “Its very difficult to make predictions – especially about the future!” So let’s now focus just on things we know “for sure” from observations of the past because, as Yogi also said: “One can observe a lot just by watching!”

28. Outline of this presentation: • The two factors that determine the heating and cooling of the Earth. • The Notion of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). • Have we converted a lot of Geological Carbon to Biological Carbon? • Does the Biological Carbon go back to Geological Carbon? • Is atmospheric CO2 increasing? • So what? The Ice Core Record. • Is the Earth’s temperature rising? • But other factors also affect climate. • What is the “Sensitivity” of CO2 - this is what the argument is all about. • What level of CO2 might be OK? The Ocean Bottom Core Record. • How can we possibly get back to 350 ppm???? • Questions.

29. Fuels + O2 ---> CO2 + H2O

30. Figure 1. Fossil fuel and land-use CO2 emissions, and potential fossil fuel emissions. Historical fossil fuel emissions are from the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center [CDIAC, S34] and British Petroleum [BP, S35]. Lower limits on oil and gas reserves are from IPCC [S36] and higher limits are from the United States Energy Information Administration [EIA, 80]. Lower limit for coal reserves is from the World Energy Council [WEC, S37] and upper limit from IPCC [S36]. Land use estimate is from integrated emissions of Houghton/2 (Fig. S14) supplemented to include pre-1850 and post-2000 emissions; uncertainty bar is subjective. References are given by Hansen et al. (Open Atmos. Sci. J. 2, 217-231, 2008). Fossil Fuels. To 2008

31. Outline of this presentation: • The two factors that determine the heating and cooling of the Earth. • The Notion of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). • Have we converted a lot of Geological Carbon to Biological Carbon? • Does the extra Biological Carbon go back to Geological Carbon? • Is atmospheric CO2 increasing? • So what? The Ice Core Record. • Is the Earth’s temperature rising? • But other factors also affect climate. • What is the “Sensitivity” of CO2 - this is what the argument is all about. • What level of CO2 might be OK? The Ocean Bottom Core Record. • How can we possibly get back to 350 ppm???? • Questions.

32. Note: “only” about 2% of the total CO2 flux to atmosphere today is due to fossil fuel use.

33. Direct atmospheric measurements (the Keeling Curve) About half of extra CO2 emitted from fossil fuels stays in the atmosphere. Note: was 280 ppm prior to Industrial Revolution, so NO, the excess CO2 does not quickly go back to GC "Image created by Robert A. Rohde / Global Warming Art"

34. This is the predicted residence time for a sudden “pulse” of extra CO2 – calculated here just for the sake of understanding where the excess goes.. Image created by Robert A. Rohde / Global Warming Art

35. The CO2 “overload” due to the combustion of fossil fuels has a very long lifetime, on the order of a few millennia. Therefore, every day we set a new higher level of atmospheric CO2 that will last essentially “forever” on a time scale of relevance to existing civilization. Note: 450 ppm CO2 was considered a laudable goal just a few years ago. 350 ppm is now considered by many to be the number we should shoot for by the end of this century.

36. Outline of this presentation: • The two factors that determine the heating and cooling of the Earth. • The Notion of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). • Have we converted a lot of Geological Carbon to Biological Carbon? • Does the Biological Carbon go back to Geological Carbon? • Is atmospheric CO2 increasing? • So what? The Ice Core Record. • Is the Earth’s temperature rising? • But other factors also affect climate. • What is the “Sensitivity” of CO2 - this is what the argument is all about. • What level of CO2 might be OK? The Ocean Bottom Core Record. • How can we possibly get back to 350 ppm???? • Questions.

37. Mauna Loa (and all remote sites in Northern Hemisphere) South Pole (and all remote sites in Southern Hemisphere)

38. Outline of this presentation: • The two factors that determine the heating and cooling of the Earth. • The Notion of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). • Have we converted a lot of Geological Carbon to Biological Carbon? • Does the Biological Carbon go back to Geological Carbon? • Is atmospheric CO2 increasing? • Increasing relative to what? Consider the Ice Core Record. • Is the Earth’s temperature rising? • But other factors also affect climate. • What is the “Sensitivity” of CO2 - this is what the argument is all about. • What level of CO2 might be OK? The Ocean Bottom Core Record. • How can we possibly get back to 350 ppm???? • Questions.

39. We have an excellent record of the last 800,000 years provided by ice core samples taken from Greenland and Antarctica.

41. ice core samples provide a record of the previous 800,000 years • - Taken from both Greenland and Antarctica • - Gases trapped in bubbles include CO2, CH4, and N2O • Deuterium content in water indicates Temperature • (that is DHO content in H2O) Cores are about 6 inches in diameter by X,000 feet long.

42. Different ice cores – nearly identical results from ocean bottom core samples

43. Increase over Industrial Age N2O - 30% CO2 - 40% CH4 - 250% From 2007 IPCC Report

45. During the last two million years, climate changes have been initiated by: the Milankovitch cycles E - distance from sun T - magnitude of tilt P - direction of tilt the determining factor here is how warm a summer the Northern Hemisphere has. These small changes were then greatly amplified by the albedo and greenhouse gas feedbacks.

46. Yikes!!! way too much positive GHG forcing! Note: the present level of Forcing by CO2 is expected to last “forever” and temperature always catches up within a few decades. From “Target Atmospheric CO2: Where should humanity aim?” by Hansen et al.,2008,.

47. Outline of this presentation: • The two things that determine the heating and cooling of the Earth. • The Notion of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). • Have we converted a lot of Geological Carbon to Biological Carbon? • Does the Biological Carbon to back as quickly to Geological Carbon? • Is atmospheric CO2 increasing? • So what? The Ice Core Record. • So is the Earth’s Temperature rising today? • But factors also affect climate. • What is the “Sensitivity” of CO2. • What level of CO2 might be OK? The Ocean Bottom Core Record. • How can we possibly get back to 350 ppm???? • Questions.

48. These is a lot of indirect evidence concerning this question:

49. Temperature up to 2009

50. Note that the Southern Hemisphere warmed less due to its greater oceanic surface. "Image created by Robert A. Rohde / Global Warming Art"