Course No. Env.

4213
Global Climate Change
(3 Credits, 100 Marks)

Course Teacher: Dr. Syed Hafizur Rahman (SHR)

M. Sc. (JU), Ph. D. (Birmingham University, United Kingdom)
Post Doc. (Sussex University, United Kingdom)

Professor, Department of Environmental Sciences

&
Director, IQAC-JU
(Institutional Quality Assurance Cell-Jahangirnagar University)
Jahangirnagar University
Dhaka1342, Bangladesh
+8801720173352
hafizsr@juniv.edu
http://syedhafizurrahman.com/
 Energy Basics & Earth’s Climate
Sensitivity
• Lesson Goals:
• Generate everyday analogies to describe
energy (in Joules, J) and energy fluxes (in
Watts per square meter, W/m2) in intuitive
terms.
• Given a change in energy flux, estimate a
global temperature change using Earth’s
climate sensitivity.
• Three most commonly used temperature
scales, degrees Fahrenheit, degrees Celsius,
and Kelvin.
• From now on, we'll be using degrees Celsius or
Kelvin. The great thing about these two scales
is that the size of 1 degree is the same in both
of them.
• It's just that the numbers are offset. So, 0
degrees Celsius is the same as 273 Kelvin, and
plus 1 degree Celsius is the same as 274
Kelvin, etc.
 Energy
• In this lesson, we're going to talk about
energy. And starting to get a sense of the
energy in Earth's climate system using some
everyday analogies.
• In particular, we're interested in the amount of
energy that needs to be added or subtracted
from Earth's climate system in order to change
earth's average temperature by a degree.
That's a Celsius or Kelvin degree.
• This quantity is called the climate sensitivity.
• Add energy, and Earth's temperature will go
up.
• Subtract energy, and Earth's temperature will
go down.
• But by how much?
• If it only takes a small change in energy to
change the temperature a lot, that means the
climate is really sensitive.
• Or, if you add a lot of energy, and the
temperature changes only a little bit, the
climate isn't very sensitive.
How much energy in food?
• we have a food label that lists energy
in quote, calories. We're going to call
those food calories.

we have a food label that lists

energy in both kilojoules, that's the
kJ, and kilocalories, that's the kCal.
The kilocalories are actually the
same as the food calories
• we can convert food calories, that is kCal to kilojoules
or kJ.
• Joules are the units that we use in climate science.

How many kJ in one kcal?

• About 240 food calories = about 1000 kJoules

= ___________ Joules
• About 100 food calories = about 418 kJoules
= 418,000 Joules
• What about an apple?
• An apple has about 100 food
calories, or kCal, which is
about 418 kilojoules, or
418,000 joules.
• When we're using Joules, the
numbers seem to get pretty
big in comparison to everyday
food calorie units.
• In Earth's climate system, one of the items that
matters is the energy it takes to raise the
temperature of water.
• To heat one gram of liquid water (the amount of
water in a little cubic centimeter) by one Kelvin, it
takes about 1/1000th of a food calorie, or 4.18
joules.
• This is called the heat capacity of water, and all
substances have a heat capacity.
• It's the amount of energy it takes to heat them up by
a degree. For water, that's 4.18 joules per gram, per
Kelvin.
• So, how much energy does it take to make a pot of
tea?
• Watts are a unit that describes energy per time.
Specifically, watts are joules per second.
• How fast is it heating up? How fast is energy being
added? To bring your teakettle to boiling in two
minutes, you'd have to add those 418,000 joules
within two minutes.
• Which means you'd need to transfer energy to the
water at a rate of about 3,500 joules a second or
3,500 watts.
• If all the energy from a 60 watt light bulb could go
toward heating your kettle, it would take about two
hours to heat at 60 joules per second.
• In Earth's climate system, we have energy coming in,
going out, travelling in all directions all the time.
• How much energy and how much time over what
area? So, now we are going to add area to energy per
time.
• On top atmosphere in the tropics at high noon 1
meter square carpet would receive around 1360
watts. That's 1360 joules every second.
• You'd have to consume about 12 apples per hour to
get the equivalent of the energy coming in from the
sun.
• With that energy, you could make a cup of tea in
about five minutes.
• Because the Earth is spherical and it rotates, the 1360
watts per meter squared gets spread out to an average
over time of about 340 watts per meter squared,
received at the top of the atmosphere.
• It's about like the energy output from 5 or 6, 60 watt
incandescent light bulbs. All shining on one square
meter.
• The Earth's surface only absorbs about half the amount
received by 1 meter square carpet up there.
• If we combine the amounts of energy, Earth's surface
absorbs from the sun and the amount it absorbs from
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
• It turns out that Earth's surface absorbs about 500 watts
per meter squared.
• That's about equal to 4 and a half apples an hour.
• The amount of energy Earth's surface receives can
change over time and as we'll see various parts of
the climate system respond.
• Some parts respond slowly, like big ice sheets. Others
respond very quickly, like water vapor in the
atmosphere.
• The current best estimates are that if 1 watt per
meter squared is added, that's one additional joule
every second for every meter of Earth's surface.
• Then after Earth reaches equilibrium with the new
situation, Earth's temperature would have increased
by about three 4th of a degree Celsius.
• This is what's called the Climate Sensitivity.
• This number, three 4th of a degree Celsius per
watt per meter squared, has a range of
possibility.
• If Earth's climate is a bit less sensitive than this,
we'll see a weaker temperature response.
• If Earth's climate is a bit more sensitive, we'll
see a stronger temperature response and more
heating than this number would predict.
• There's a range of estimates for the climate
sensitivity.
• Though, many different approaches yield similar
ranges.
• So, what kinds of changes might add four watts per
meter squared of energy to Earth's climate system?
• Earth's reflectivity might change by that much or Earth's
greenhouse effect might change by that much.
• Or a combination of changes could produce 4 watts per
meter squared of difference.
• A handy and fairly common way to think about the
climate sensitivity, and relate it to a change in the
greenhouse effect.
• Is that if the concentration of Carbon Dioxide in the
atmosphere were to double, we'd get about an
additional 4 watts per meters squared on average over
each square meter of Earth's surface.
• This number includes the some of the faster responses in
the climate system that occur when CO2 increases. Like
increasing water vapor in the atmosphere.
• The effect therefore of doubling CO2 concentration is a
temperature increase of about three degrees Celsius
after the Earth equilibrates to its new energy balance.
• We could get that 4 watts per meter squared by doubling
from 100 parts per million to 200 parts per million CO2.
And then, we could get an additional 4 watts per meter
squared by doubling from 200 parts per million to 400
parts per million.
• Or the 4 watts per meter squared might come from some
other aspect of the climate system.
• Perhaps an ice sheet expands, so that four more watts
per meter squared gets reflected back to space, and
Earth cools by three degrees.
• Perhaps, soot landing on white ice decreases the ice's
reflectivity and adds more watts per meter squared
absorbed by Earth's surface.
• Or perhaps reflective aerosols increase or decrease.
• The combination of changes in the climate system, many
of them interconnected, determine changes in the
energy balance over time.
• And therefore, changes in temperature over time.
 Key Points
• Familiar units of energy are food calories or kiloJoules. In
climate science, we use JOULES.
• In climate science, for talking about energy per time, we
use WATTS, which are Joules per second.
• In climate science, for talking about energy per time per
area, we use WATTS PER METER SQUARED (W/m2).
• Earth’s temperature responds to changes in energy flux.
If the energy in the system increases by ONE W/m2,
Earth’s average surface temperature will likely respond
by heating up by about ¾ °C
• This value, about ¾ °C per W/m2, is called the CLIMATE
SENSITIVITY.
 Basic Systems Dynamics
Lesson Goals:
• Define stock, flow, and feedback.
• Explain how the combined history of inflows and outflows
determines a stock
• Predict what happens to stocks and flows of energy and
materials when a system is perturbed
• Construct examples of both amplifying and stabilizing
feedbacks
 Systems dynamics: Stock & Flow
• STOCK: Amount or quantity of something
residing in a particular place at a particular
time

• apples in a basket, water in a glacier, fish in

the sea, people at a party, CO2 in the
atmosphere, knowledge in your brain, political
capital…
 Systems dynamics: Stock & Flow
• FLOW: The rate at which stuff adds or
subtracts from a stock.

• apples picked per hour, water melted per

month, fish born per year, knowledge lost per
decade…
 Key Points
• In Earth’s dynamic climate system, there are stocks of
matter and energy, flows of matter and energy, and
feedbacks.
• If inflows and outflows are equal, a stock won’t change
over time.
• If inflow > outflow, the stock will grow. If outflow >
inflow, the stock will shrink over time.
• Amplifying feedbacks push the system in the same
direction as a perturbation.
• These are the “runaway”, destabilizing processes that can
cause big changes.
 Key Points
• Stabilizing feedbacks counteract perturbations and keep
a system from changing very fast.
• They help move the system toward equilibrium – perhaps
a new equilibrium state, but a stable state nonetheless.

• We’ve encountered one amplifying feedback involving ice

and its reflectivity, and one stabilizing feedback involving
emission of radiation by Earth’s surface. We’ll encounter
more feedbacks later.
More than a million years of warm-cold climate
cycles precede today
Approximately how long does each of the large,
prominent climate cycles take?
Milankovitch Cycle
 Key Points
• Changes in Earth’s orbit alter the amount and
distribution of incoming solar radiation Earth
receives.
• Low seasonal contrast helps grow ice sheets;
high seasonal contrast helps melt ice sheets.
• The total incoming energy doesn’t vary
enough to account for the large observed
change in climate, but feedbacks, like the ice
albedo feedback and the CO2-temperature
 Key Points
• feedback amplify small perturbations and help
produce larger changes in Earth’s climate.
• The past million years is our geologic backdrop
against which we can compare today’s rates of
change in climate and absolute values of
climate parameters.
• Today’s rates of change, and values like
atmospheric CO2 , are higher than observed in
the past million years.
We've had a look at the past million years of
earth's climate, and now we're going to check
out some data from the more recent past, The
last couple of hundred years.
We'll look at some of the primary metrics of
climate change, like temperature and sea
level, ice cover and greenhouse gas
concentrations.
And how these things have measurably changed
over time.
 Temperature
• The surface thermometer record goes back
• until about 1880.
• The satellite record goes back only until
• the 1970's.
• And prior to those times, we rely on data from
other sources, like samples from ice sheets at
different times in the past.
• Or the chemistry of deep ocean sediments.
• there's variability from year to year. That's
normal and expected.
• For example, 1998 was an unusually warm
average year, because there was a large El Niño
event. And during El Niño's, large parts of the
tropical pacific ocean are warmer than usual.
• the trend for the past century has been toward
warmer temperatures. Temperatures have
increased about 0.6 degrees Celsius in the last 50
years, about 1 degree Celsius in the past century.
• during the last ice age, temperatures were 5 to 6
degrees cooler.
 Heat content
• Compared to other substances, water has a
fairly high heat capacity, which means it takes
quite a lot of energy to heat it up.
• In recent decades, the inflow of energy to earth
has been greater than the outflow.
• Just as in any system, if we have an imbalance
of flows, the stock, in this case the stock of
energy will change.
• On Earth, a lot of the extra energy has been
going into the oceans.
• But a much larger amount has gone toward heating the
ocean. The water on the surface mixes with the water
underneath taking the energy downward away from
the surface.
• Thus its not just the surface that's heating, it's also the
water deeper down. Which means that it takes more
energy and longer to raise the temperature of the
oceans.
• Measurements show that the warming of the oceans
extends down to at least 2,000 meters water depth.
• It takes a lot of energy to heat up a 2 kilometer deep
bathtub. These data show that the climate system has
been accumulating energy.
• When water heats up, it expands in volume.
• Since the bottom of the ocean isn't changing very fast,
the only place for that extra volume to go is upward,
raising the water level.
• This expansion of ocean water is responsible for about
half the global sea level rise.
• And melting ice on land accounts for the other half.
• Now the cool thing about making predictions or
forecasting future changes, is that, then time passes,
and we can see how good those forecasts actually
turned out to be.
• the gray area represents the range of possibilities
that seemed probable to the intergovernmental
panel on climate change with the information they
had when they did their assessment report back in
1990.
• And then time passed, and people continued to
monitor sea level. And it turned out that the 1990
estimate from the IPCC was quite conservative.
• The real future sea level has followed the upper edge
of the projections made back in 1990.
• Sea level is a metric that really matters on a practical
level for many people, since a whole lot of us live
very close to sea level.
• Let's use these data to make an estimate of how fast
global sea level has risen since 1990.
• How many centimeters of sea level rise happened
between about 1990 and 2010?
• You can extrapolate a little bit to 2010. In those two
decades, sea level went up by a little more than 6
centimeters.
• From those data, the rate of rise turns out to have
been about 3.1 millimeters per year.
• As a comparison, during the transition from the last
ice age to the present warm period, the rate of sea
level rise was sometimes much higher than our
present 3.1 millimeters per year, up to 10 millimeters
per year or higher.
• If all the ice on Greenland were to melt, we'd see a rise of
about 6 meters of sea level, and if all of the ice on
Antarctica were to melt, we'd see another 17 meters.
• Nobody's forecasting that kind of catastrophic change
happening quickly, but it's worth imagining what your
area would look like.
• Another type of ice, floating sea ice, doesn't influence
sea level rise, but it does play a role in the flows of
energy in earth's climate system.
• Sea ice is pretty thin and it floats on the ocean. Every
year a lot of it melts in the summer and grows back in the
winter, and some sea ice sticks around from year to year.
• Though that's becoming less common than it used to be.
• In the summertime, when sea ice melts, it exposes the
darker ocean water underneath. So, during the melting
season as the sea ice coverage declines the ice albedo
feedback helps it melt further and faster, because the
darker ocean more of which is now exposed, absorbs
more incoming solar radiation.
• Annually, the sea ice in the Arctic reaches it's minimum
extent in September, which is at the end of the melting
season, and reaches it's maximum in March at the end of
the dark winter.
• Compare the area covered with ice in this image for
September of 2007 to the pink line which is the median
ice edge for September for all the available years of
satellite data.
 Sea ice extent on a plot over time
• data from 1980 through 2012. On the vertical axis, Arctic
sea ice extent in September; which is the month at which
sea ice is at its minimum.
• the strong decline that happened in 2007, taking
September's sea ice extent down to about 4.3 million
square kilometers.
• Then just five years later, in 2012, the sea ice extent
record was broken again.
• And the September extent went down further to just 3.6
million square kilometers.
• Given the observed rates of change, there's a decent
chance the Arctic will be virtually ice free in summer,
within next 50 years.
• Here's the atmospheric carbon dioxide record, since CD
Keeling began collecting data at Mauna Loa in Hawaii in
the late 1950's.
• Back then, the value for atmospheric carbon dioxide was
about 315 parts per million.
• Since then, the value has been increasing. Already
approached 400 parts per million.
• The rate of change in the last couple of decades is faster
than the rate of change was in the first couple of
decades.
• The reason atmospheric carbon dioxide is rising, is
because the inflow of Co2 to the atmosphere from fossil
fuel burning, land use change, and cement making,
exceeds the outflow of Co2 from the atmosphere, into
the oceans and into land based biomass and soils.
Measurements of climate-related
parameters indicate that recent global
climate trends are toward:
– higher temperatures,
– higher sea levels,
– lower summer sea ice extent,
– melting of land ice from ice sheets on
Antarctica and Greenland
– higher concentrations of greenhouse
gases
• For some of these, like greenhouse gas
concentrations, the values today exceed
values observed over many tens of
thousands of years.
• Rates of change in some of these
parameters are rapid today compared to
the pre-industrial past.