Week #3: Causes of Climate Change

TA: Ms. Tang, Wing Yee Chloe

Office: Room 925, 9/F, The Jockey Club Tower
HKU Centennial Campus
Phone: 3917-7115
Email: wychloe@hku.hk
Office hours: Upon appointment
 GEOG1003
Week Date Coursework Topics Lectures

1 02-Sep Introduction Introduction to global environmental issues

#1 released
2 09-Sep Climate Change Introduction to climate change
(Due 16-Sep)
3 16-Sep Climate Change Causes of climate change
#2 released
4 23-Sep Climate Change Climates of the past
(Due 30-Sep)
Progress Report
5 30-Sep Climate Change Global atmospheric change
due (21-Oct)
6 07-Oct NO CLASS! Chung Yeung Festival
7 14-Oct NO CLASS! Reading Week
8 21-Oct Climate Change Consequences of climate change
#3 released
9 28-Oct Water resources crisis Water resources and pollution
(Due 4-Nov)
#4 released
10 04-Nov Overpopulation Overpopulation and urbanization
(Due 11-Nov)

11 11-Nov Air/land pollution Air pollution, acid deposition, land pollution

Earthquake, Tsunami, Thunderstorm and

12 18-Nov Natural hazards
Tornado
Final Project
13 25-Nov Energy crisis Energy sources and crisis
due (5-Dec)
14 02-Dec Course review Course review
 Weather vs. Climate
• Weather refers to the state of the atmosphere at a
given time and place. It is constantly changing,
sometimes from hour to hour and other times from
day to day.
• Climate is the average of daily weather parameters
over many years (typically >30yrs) and characterizes
seasons as well as geography.
Climate = What you expect Climatology, Climatologist
Weather = What you get Meteorology, Meteorologist
Climate tells what clothes to BUY, but
weather tells you what clothes to WEAR.
Forcings of Climate Change
Are they causing global warming?
 Variations of the Earth’s surface temperature
for the past 1,000 years

Approx. climate
range over the 900
Last century
years up to 1900
appears
unusual

But the climate variations before the industrial revolution

were almost certainly natural – what caused them?
And could 20th century warming also be a natural variation?
 What causes climate to change?
Climate forcing: A factor that can cause climate to change.
 External Forcing:
The agent of change is outside of the Earth’s climate
system.

 Internal Forcing:
The agent of change is
within the Earth’s climate
system itself (i.e., natural
changes in the
components of the climate
system and their
interactions).
 External forcing affects the total energy
received. Internal forcing mostly affects
the inside energy distribution. Schematic of the Climate System from IPCC Report 2007
External Forcings:

 Variations in solar output

 Orbital variations

 Volcanic eruptions

 Continent Drift

 Meteors

 Greenhouse Gases (to the extent that they are not

part of the climate system itself)
Internal Forcings:

• ENSO: interannual time scale (typically occur 2-7

years)
• Pacific Decadal Oscillation: decadal time scale
• North Atlantic Oscillation or Arctic Oscillation or
Northern Annular Mode: decadal time scale
• Southern Annular Mode: decadal time scale
• Atlantic overturning mode: centennial time scale
• and more….
 Variations in Solar Radiation

Solar flare Sunspot

April 16, 2012 Feb 7 - 20, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6jr6hU_bx4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0Lt3SgiEQ8
Structure of the Sun
 Solar flare – a sudden
brightening observed over
the Sun’s surface or the solar
limb, which is interpreted as a
large energy release.
 Sunspots – magnetic storms
on the sun that show up as
dark region.
 The Sun is in fact about
0.1% brighter when there
are more spots.

More sun spot number, brighter the sun, stronger the

solar radiation
Sunspot with the naked eyes
•

甘德

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunspot
 The sunspot cycle
Heinrich
Discovered in 1843 by an amateur astronomer, after 17 years Schwabe
of near-continuous sunspot observations (1826-1843)

The sunspot cycle has a period of about 11 years, and its

amplitude shows important cycle-to-cycle fluctuations

Rudolf Wolf
 Climate Change and Variations in Solar Output

THE MAUNDER MINIMUM

 An absence of sunspots was well observed
– from 1645 to 1715.
 Coincided with a cool climatic period in Europe and NA:
– “Little Ice Age”
 Climate Change and Variations in Solar Output

The Maunder Minimum was not unique.

Is the Sun causing global warming?

Figure 1: Global temperature (red, NASA GISS) and Total solar

irradiance (blue, 1880 to 1978 from Solanki, 1979 to 2009
from PMOD).
Is the Sun causing global warming?
Orbital Variations and Climate Change
Earth’s Orbital Variations

Rotation Revolution

• Rotate west to east or ‘counter-clockwise’ (when

viewed from the North Pole)
– sunset and sunrise
• Rotation period is 24 hours per solar day
(23 hours 56 minutes with respect to other stars)
Earth’s Orbital Variations

Rotation Revolution

• Period of revolution is 365.25 solar days

• Elliptical orbit (plane of the ecliptic)
• The Earth is tilted 23.5º from perpendicular to the
plane of the ecliptic.
 Orbital forcing on climate change
Milankovitch Cycles
Mathematically calculated the
timing and influence at different
latitudes of changes in orbital
eccentricity, precession of the
equinoxes, and obliquity of the
ecliptic.

Deep Sea sediments in late 1970’s

strengthen Milankovitch cycles
theory.
Orbital changes
 Milankovitch theory:
 Variations in the Earth’s orbit
– Changes in shape of the earth’s orbit around sun:
 Eccentricity (100,000 & 413,000 years)
Orbital changes
 Milankovitch theory:
 Variations in the Earth’s orbit
– Changes in shape of the earth’s orbit around sun:
 Eccentricity (100,000 & 413,000 years)
– Changes in the tilt of earth’s axis:
 Obliquity (41,000 years)
Orbital changes
 Milankovitch theory:
 Variations in the Earth’s orbit
– Changes in shape of the earth’s orbit around sun:
 Eccentricity (100,000 & 413,000 years)
– Changes in the tilt of earth’s axis:
 Obliquity (41,000 years)
– Wobbling of the earth’s axis of rotation:
 Precession (26,000 years)
Important Concepts:
• All these cycles occur simultaneously and hence can
compound or counteract each other.
• It is believed that the orbital cycles, plus changes in solar
radiation, resulted in the glacial-interglacial cycles.
Is orbital forcing causing global warming?

• Cycles in the Earth's orbit happen so slowly that they

cannot account for the rapid warming we are seeing
today.
• The current position of the Earth's orbit should result
in cooler temperatures, but instead, the opposite is
happening.
Volcanism and Climate Change
 Quick Facts
 Volcanoes tend to exist along the edges of tectonic plates,
massive rock slabs that make up Earth's surface.
 About 90 percent of all volcanoes exist within the Ring of
Fire along the edges of the Pacific Ocean.
 Volcanoes are active, meaning they show some level of
activity and are likely to explode again, dormant, showing
no current signs of exploding but are likely to become
active at some point in the future, or extinct meaning they
will not be active again.
 About 1,900 volcanoes on Earth are considered active.

Mount Ontake (Sep 27, 2014)

https://www.youtube.com/wa
tch?v=aQtkoLxqUNQ
 Volcanoes blast huge clouds into the atmosphere
made up of gases and particles including sulfur
dioxide, water vapor, and carbon dioxide.
 An eruption can cause warming and cooling.
• An addition of carbon dioxide contributes to
greenhouse warming.
• An addition of sulfurous gases induces cooling,
because they turn into droplets of sulfuric acid that
absorb and reflect sunlight, and cut down the
amount of heat that reaches the ground.
 But most documented cases show a net
cooling effect.
 Climate vs. Weather
 Weather changes constantly. Climate is the
average of weather over a period of time.

 Volcanoes can have HUGE effects on the weather

but typically, only the really big eruptions will
have noticeable effects on the climate.

Li et al., 2013
Volcanic Eruptions and Climate Change

 Volcanic eruptions can cause occurrences

such as:
• Global cooling
• Ice ages
• Mass extinctions
Global Cooling
• Tambora (1815): One of the largest eruptions during the
last millennium.
• Located in the tropics, where aerosols could easily reach
the stratosphere and quickly spread around the world.
• 1816 – “Year Without A summer”. Very cold summer
followed by extremely cold winter.
 Tambora, 1815, produced the “Year Without a
Summer” (July 1816)

“Darkness” I had a dream, which was not all a dream.

by Byron The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light:
And they did live by watchfires—and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings—the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,
And men were gather'd round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other's face; . . .
 Tambora, 1815, produced the
“Year Without a Summer” (1816)

Percy Bysshe Shelley Mary Shelley George Gordon,

Lord Byron

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtPBo5k7VSk
Tambora in 1815, together with an eruption
from an unknown volcano in 1809, produced
the “Year Without a Summer” (1816)

Global Surface Temperature Reconstruction

0.3
0.2
0.1
Anomaly (°C)

0
-0.1
-0.2
-0.3
-0.4
1700

1720

1740

1760

1780

1800

1820
1840

1860

1880
1900

1920

1940

1960

1980
Year

Mann et al. (2000)

European summer in 1816 Annual mean T. in 1816
Pinatubo, Philippines (1991)
Predicted & Observed changes in Global Average Temperature
after the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991
from IPCC Report 1996
 Global Cooling

1902 1963 1982 1991

Changes in Global Mean Temperature in 20th century

• as observed (black)
• as simulated by ensemble of models (red & blue)

From IPCC Report 2007

Can Volcanic Eruptions Cause Ice Ages?

Little Ice Age

Starts

PAGES 2k Consortium, 2013

Can Volcanic Eruptions Cause
Mass Extinctions?

Two possible mechanisms:

1. CO2 warms climate, producing climate change,

biological feedbacks, and poisoning of land species.

2. SO2 forms stratospheric sulfate cloud, cooling

climate long enough to kill not only existing
species, but the seed bank.
Did volcanic eruptions cause global warming?

• The amount of CO2 that comes from volcanic

eruptions has not increased, and it's not enough to
cause global warming.
• The main way volcanoes can change the Earth's
climate is by causing a temporary cooling effect.

So, volcanic eruptions are NOT responsible for global

warming.
Continent Drift and Climate Change
Continental drift http://www.mun.ca/biology/scarr/Pangaea.html

In 1915, German scientist Alfred Wegener first proposed continental drift theory and
published book On the Origin of Continents and Oceans

Continental drift states:

In the beginning, a supercontinent called Pangaea. During Jurrasic, Pangaea breaks up
into two smaller supercontinents, Laurasia and Gondwanaland,. By the end of the
Cretaceous period, the continents were separating into land masses that look like our
modern-day continents
Consequences of continent drift on climate

Polarward drifting of continents provides land area for ice

formation  cold climate

Antarctica separated from South America, reducing

oceanic heat transport  cold climate

Joint of North and South America strengthens Gulf

Stream and increases oceanic heat transport  warm
climate

Uplift of Tibetan Plateau  Indian monsoon

Is continent drift causing global warming? NO

Meteors and Climate Change
 Asteroid impact initializes
chain of forcing on climate
Short-term forcing:
• The kinetic energy transferred to the
atmosphere sufficient to warm the global
mean temperature by 30 K over the first 30
days.

Long-term forcing:
• Over several weeks to months, a global
cloud of dusts obscures the Sun, cooling
the Earth’s surface, effectively eliminating
photosynthesis.

• These effects together could kill most flora.

• The latter results in a large increase in
atmospheric CO2, enabling a large warming
of the climate thereafter.
 Asteroid impact initializes
chain of forcing on climate

A hypothesis is
proposed to 65 Million
years ago for one
possible reason that
kills the dinosaurs.
(NYTimes, Oct 1, 2015)
 Asteroid impact initializes
chain of forcing on climate

A hypothesis is
proposed to 65 Million
years ago for one
possible reason that
kills the dinosaurs.

Is asteroid impact causing global warming? No

External Forcing

 Variations in solar output

 Orbital variations

 Volcanic eruptions

 Continent Drift

 Meteors

 Greenhouse Gases (to the extent that they are not

part of the climate system itself)
Contribution of each GHG to greenhouse effect

• In order, the most abundant greenhouse • Ranked by their direct

gases in Earth's atmosphere are: contribution to the GH effect

Gas Contribution(%)
H2O 36 – 72%
CO2 9 – 26%
CH4 4 – 9%
O3 3 – 7%
N2 O 1 – 4%

• Water vapor accounts for the largest percentage of the GH effect

(Then why we are not much concerned?)
• The residence time of water vapor in the air is only nine days.
• Human activity does not significantly affect water vapor concentration at the
global scale.
• The atmospheric concentration of water vapor depends largely on
temperature (high temp-->more water vapor).
 Main sources of GHG due to human activity
• CO2: Burning of fossil fuels and deforestation leading to higher
CO2concentrations in the air. Land use change (mainly deforestation in the
tropics) account for up to one third of total anthropogenic CO2emissions.
• CH4: Livestock enteric fermentation and manure
management, paddy rice farming, land use and wetland changes, pipeline
losses, and covered vented landfill emissions leading to higher methane
atmospheric concentrations.

• N2O: Agricultural activities, including the use of fertilizers, that lead to higher
nitrous oxide (N2O) concentrations.

• CFCs: Use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in refrigeration systems, and use of

CFCs and halons in fire suppression systems and manufacturing processes.
World Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Why global warming will continue even if GHG emissions
are cut down dramatically?

• Atmospheric lifetime: The residence time of a gas in the air

Chemical Lifetime GWP for given time horizon

Gas name
formula (years)
20-yr 100-yr 500-yr
Carbon
CO2 30-95 1 1 1
dioxide
Methane CH4 12 72 25 7.6

Nitrous oxide N2O 114 289 298 153

CFC-12 CCl2F2 100 11 000 10 900 5 200

HCFC-22 CHClF2 12 5 160 1 810 549

Global warming potential (GWP)

• A relative measure of how much heat a GHG traps in the air.

• It compares the amount of heat trapped by a certain mass of
the gas in question to the amount of heat trapped by a similar mass
of CO2.
• A GWP is calculated over a specific time interval, commonly 20, 100
or 500 years.

Chemical Lifetime GWP for given time horizon

Gas name
formula (years)
20-yr 100-yr 500-yr
Carbon
CO2 30-95 1 1 1
dioxide
Methane CH4 12 72 25 7.6

Nitrous oxide N2O 114 289 298 153

CFC-12 CCl2F2 100 11 000 10 900 5 200

HCFC-22 CHClF2 12 5 160 1 810 549

 Current greenhouse gas concentrations (2013)

Increased
Pre-1750 Recent Absolute Percentage
radiative
Gas tropospheric tropospheric increase increase
forcing
concentration concentration since 1750 since 1750
(W/m2)
Carbon
280 ppm 395.4 ppm 115.4 ppm 41.2% 1.88
dioxide(CO2)

1893 ppb / 1193 ppb / 170.4% /

Methane (CH4) 700 ppb 0.49
1762 ppb 1062 ppb 151.7%

Nitrous 326 ppb / 56 ppb / 20.7% /

270 ppb 0.17
oxide (N2O) 324 ppb 54 ppb 20.0%

Tropospheric
237 ppb 337 ppb 100 ppb 42% 0.4
ozone (O3)

ppm = parts-per-million (1/1,000,000);

1 ppm = 1000 ppb
ppb = parts-per-billion (1/1,000,000,000);
W/m2 =watts per square metre
Is the GHG causing global warming?
External Forcing

 Variations in solar output

 Orbital variations

 Volcanic eruptions

 Continent Drift

 Meteors

 Greenhouse Gases (to the extent that they are not

part of the climate system itself)
Is the GHG causing global warming?