CHAPTER 12

Climate Change

All the discussions regarding the interaction among science, technology, and society will
conclude with a current controversial topic-climate change. It is current in a sense that it has
been put under international spotlight since the start of the 21" century. Data that have been
accumulated are used by scientists to determine if there really is a significant change in the
earth's climate. But what does climate change mean? Doesn't the climate always change?
Climate is not similar to weather which is constantly changing Climate refers to the long-
term weather patterns prevailing over a given area of the planet. The term comes from a Greek
word klinein meaning "to slope." It evolved into klima, connoting a zone or region of the Earth as
characterized by its atmospheric conditions. In ancient Greece, the orb of the sun stood at a high
angle in the sky at noontime as ships sailed toward the north, and the daytime temperature of the
air would get colder. Hence the klima in the north was colder than in the south.
Another consideration in explaining climate change is the interaction between the sun and
the Earth. The best way to visualize this relationship is to look at the orbit of the Earth around the
sun. With the sun in the center, the Earth moves in an elliptical motion

EARTH'S MOVEMENT AROUND THE SUN

While the orbit remains an ellipse, its position or orientation in space changes over time.
Due to the tilt of the Earth, the whole area does not receive an equal amount of sunlight. The
Earth spins around its own axis, an imaginary line from the North Pole to the South Pole, which
dips and wobbles gradually. The Earth could then be imagined like a spinning top or trumpo,
turning and wobbling in its path about the sun.

The elements in this interaction between the sun and the Earth are defined as follows:
1. Aphelion refers to the point in the orbit of the Earth farthest from the sun.
2. Perihelion is the point in the orbit of the Earth closest to the sun.
3. Earth's axial tilt is the inclination angle of the Earth's rotational axis in relation to a line
perpendicular to its orbital plane.
4. Precession is the change of the orientation of the rotational axis of the Earth.
5. Equinox refers to the time the sun at noon is directly over the equator. It happens twice a year
and causes an almost equal length of day and night.
6. Solstice happens when the sun at noon sits above the Tropic of Cancer or Tropic of Capricorn.
The summer solstice has the longest period of daylight in the year and the winter solstice has the
shortest period.
7. Precession of the equinoxes refers to the motion of the equinoxes relative to the precession of
the Earth's axis of rotation. It happens over thousands of years.
 The center of the Earth's orbital motion is the sun but the angle or orientation of the
planet around the sun makes all the difference. In discussing global warming or climate change,
it makes sense to start considering the orbit of the Earth. Sunlight falling upon the Earth warms
the planet. The amount of sunlight, however, is not constant since the orientation of the Earth to
the sun changes.

MILANKOVITCH PARAMETERS
There have been eras of climate change in the past. Is it possible that the 21st century
may introduce yet another dramatic changes in climate? Is there enough information to answer
the age-old question of "what will the weather be tomorrow” (Ciliberto, 2015)? There is a
growing body of data suggesting that the climate, not just the local day-to-day weather, is
changing all over the world. In fact, since the end of the 20th century, many scientists have asked
if the Earth is headed for another Ice Age (Sparks & Hawkesworth, 2004).
This concern raises the question as to what causes such dramatic changes in the day-to-
day weather and climate. It was addressed as early as the 1930s by Slovak scientist and
meteorologist Milutin Milankovitch. His interest in the daily weather patterns led him to
investigate the deeper issues: Do weather and climate come ultimately from the sun so that it is
the sun and its relation to the Earth that accounts for the change in the climate? Is it possible that
as the distance of the sun to the Earth changes, the Earth is affected enough to cause climate to
change? He knew that it has long been said by astronomers that the distance from the sun to the
Earth is constant as shown by the orbital radius of the Earth. Likewise, the tilt of the North Pole
of the Earth has always been relative to the plane of the solar system. Finally, the North Pole of
the Earth is also relative to the stars as the Earth circles the sun over many years. But could all of
these very small changes in the amount of radiation reaching the Earth from the sun bring about
the huge change in the climate of the Earth?
His contemporary scientists critiqued his work, saying that the effects of the change in
the radius of the Earth's orbit, the change in the tilt of the spin of the Earth, and the wobble in the
spin axis (now called the Milankovitch parameters), while real, were each so small that they
could not alter the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth enough to cause a phenomenon like the
Ice Age. They felt he had a good idea but it was not enough to explain the event that was being
addressed. Milankovitch's calculations indicated that there would indeed be a change but seemed
far too small to cause an Ice Age. Even the cumulative effect would simply be too tiny to matter.
It could not be proven that one caused the other and hence could not be qualified as a scientific
fact or genuine theory.
Milankovitch believed he was on to something so much that he wanted to validate his
theoretical calculations. The work was time-consuming and tedious. Since this was the early 20
century, no modern computing devices were available for him to use. Even the electronic adding
machine was not invented yet. With the technology at hand, he could not prove that the
mathematics was correct (Gleick, 1987).
Nevertheless, the mathematical expressions of the Laws of Nature as first enunciated by
Isaac Newton in the 17th century have some subtle features that might help explain the role of the
Milankovitch parameters in changing climate.
The equations of the Laws of Nature allow for cumulative or summative effects. If the
sun warms a small piece of land, it can warm a larger piece of land in the same way. If a cup of
water can be heated by one degree, two cups can be heated in the same way, one cup after
another. But what if the two cups are added together? Can the sum be heated with the same
amount of energy? No, twice as much heat would then be needed. The laws of science seem
quite consistent and reasonable. But French mathematical physicist Henri Poincare showed that
mathematically, this simple cumulative or summing process need not be as straightforward as it
might seem (Zeh, 2007).
Using the computer scientists went back to the mathematical equations that described
how the sun-Earth relationship causes the climate to change over thousands and even millions of
years. They have come to realize that changing the Milankovitch parameters over long periods of
time can indeed have a cumulative effect far greater than it appears at first glance. This discovery
is part of what has been called a new science called Chaos theory (Gleick, 1987),
In summary, it can thus be seen that science has been reviewing for decades the issue of
how and why the climate changes, especially with regard to explaining the Ice Age:
Milankovitch studied whether or not the direct amount of sunlight falling on Earth was the cause
of the Ice Age. He reasoned that over thousands of years, the relative position of the Earth and
sun changes, causing variations in the solar radiation reaching the Earth over thousands of years.
He knew that the change would be very small at any one time but he wanted to see if the
cumulative effect could be sufficient to cause the ice in the North Pole region to grow massively
enough over time to lead to the Ice Age. By the end of the century, the mathematics had
advanced and more data became available. As a result, scientists are more open to new theories
that could be verified by examining if the data and predictions conform to one or more
mathematical theories. With the advent of chaos theory, it seems that the Milankovitch theory
might in fact be relevant to the question of long-term climate change (Stewart, 2002).

GLOBAL WARMING
The Milankovitch parameters seem to be part of the cause of climate change, though not
the only cause. Some other factor seems to be needed. Today, as the world considers climate
change and its implications on food security and national development, many nations are taking
a deeper look at the science behind the issue.
Most of the scientists who study climate change agree that the average temperature of the
Earth's atmosphere has been increasing by over 90% in the latter part of the 20th century. What
are the causes of this phenomenon (Rees, 2001)?
There are two opposing arguments on the issue of whether or not this global warming is
just "natural.” One side states that nature, simply acting according to its laws with no reference
to human beings and their actions, is the main reason. For the purveyors of this belief, global
warming will happen as naturally as the suns rises and sets. Meanwhile, the other side maintains
that global warming is caused or greatly abutted by the actions of human beings. It lays the
blame on the actions of humanity, past and present.
 An oft-cited fact to better understand global warming is the temperature of the planet
versus the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere

In the graph, the x-axis shows the year and the y-axis represents the amount of carbon
dioxide (CO) in the atmosphere measured in parts per million (ppm). It should be noted that the
amount of CO, in the years before 1950 remains fairly constant but begins to climb afterwards.
An important visual is the sharpness of the Co, increase around the beginning of the present
century. Some scientists believe this level could reach an irreversible situation in which the heat
and temperature of the planet will be unstable and unpredictable. It should be remembered as
well that while CO, is a known indicator of global warming, it is not the only greenhouse gas to
concerned with

GREENHOUSE GASES
The so-called greenhouse effect refers to how certain gases in the atmosphere trap the
heat of the sun. As early as 1859, British engineer John Tyndall wrote:
As a dam built across a river causes a local deepening of the stream, so our atmosphere,
thrown across the terrestrial [infrared rays, produces a local heightening of the
temperature at the Earth's surface (quoted in Weart, 2003, p. 4).
His words mean that the atmosphere contains certain gases that naturally capture the heat
from the sun and hold it in so that the temperature of the Earth's atmosphere becomes hotter than
it would be otherwise. This mechanism is good for the biosphere because without it, the earth's
atmosphere would be like that of Mars or Antarctica-extremely cold Life can be sustained at
planet Earth due to these gases and other elements.
In the middle of the 19th century, Tyndall noted that the most prevalent of these
greenhouse gases is water vapor Meanwhile, the amount of Co, was miniscule. Tyndall,
however, was concerned as to what would become of the Earth's atmosphere if industrialization
became widespread. Industrialization is the conversion of an agrarian economy into an
industrialized one on a large scale. Since machines are primarily used in an industry, the
production of electricity by means of burning fossil fuel-usually coal-increases. In Tyndall's
time, manufacturing plants were not as widespread so the by-product of burning fossil fuel, CO 2,
was not great enough to be an issue
In a century's time, the situation changed. With the Second World War and the changes in
the geo-political arena, the industrialization of many nations has directly affected the amount of
CO, in the atmosphere. This led Charles David Keeling, an American scientist in the mid-20th
century, to find out if the increased burning of fossil fuel and the consequent release of Co, in the
atmosphere were changing the global temperature of the atmosphere. He began to measure the
amount of CO in the atmosphere of a place far away from the industrialized nations-on an extinct
volcano on the island of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean (Weart, 2003). The Keeling curve (Figure
3.16) is a graph that plots the continuous measurements of data taken at the Mauna Loa
Observatory in Hawaii
 The graph shows that the concerns of Engr Tyndall in the mid-19th century and Dr.
Keeling in the mid-20h century were well-founded. The carbon dioxide concentration has gone
up and the temperature has also risen. These findings are the solid proofs of global warming.
But how can scientists account for the correlation between the amount of CO, and the
temperature? Is the temperature incidence at this time in history? Just because a thing follows
something else does not prove a cause-and-effect relationship. Therein lies the contemporary
debate
Scientists turned to history and technology to substantiate that there is a causal
relationship between high CO, and high temperature levels. A major part of that debate hinges on
what really is happening and causing the global warming. This issue concerns many nations
since not burning fossil fuels may mean not industrializing or modernizing.

FUTURE ACTIONS
Another area of debate is centered on the predictions as to what will happen to the
climate of the world in the future This is a difficult question to answer since the climate is a
chaotic system that can only be understood using computer models. However, a computer model
is only as good as the data it used to do the calculations. Thus, the challenge is to assemble
sufficient and well-established data from all over the world to make the predictions as accurate
as possible (Sparks & Hawkesworth, 2004). Some scientists take the issue further by setting
tipping points," specifying values of meteorological parameters in which irreversible changes
will take place. Upon reaching the tipping point, a new state would replace the old one. In chaos
theory, it means that the Earth-atmosphere relationship would become a chaotic region where
uncertainty would exist.
As presented in this book, however, this issue has implications on the environment and
on the economy-burning of fossil fuels is one of the major sources of electricity but also leads to
higher amounts of CO2, All factors must then be considered when resolving this issue or debate.
If we want to industrialize but at the same time protect the environment, then a balanced plan
must be created.
Science has given humanity a tool for modernization. It allows for the emergence of
technology that spreads and applies knowledge for the attainment of the good life. It must be
realized that science is more like a cookbook than a blueprint. It is open for experimentation,
innovation, and refinement. So like any good chef, reading it requires a fine sense of taste.