A Course on Past
and Future Climate
Following (more or less)
the book by
William W. Hay (Professor
Emeritus –University of
Colorado, USA)
1.
INTRODUCTION
An Outline of the Course
1. Introduction
16.HOH – Keystone of Earth’s Climate
2. The Language of Science
17. The Atmosphere
3. Geologic Time
18. Oxygen and Ozone
4. Putting numbers on Geologic Ages
19. Water Vapor
5. Documenting past Climate Change
20. Carbon Dioxide
6. The Nature of Energy received from the Sun I
– Analogies with water Waves and Sound
21 Other Greenhouse Gasses
7. The Nature of Energy received from the Sun II
– Electromagnetic Waves
8. Exploring the Electromagnetic Spectrum
9. The Origins of Climate Science
10. The Climate System
11. What’s at the Bottom of Alice’s Rabbit Hole
12. Energy from the Sun – Long term variations
13. Solar variability and cosmic ays
I4. Albedo
15. Air
22. The circulation of Earth’s Atmosphere
and Oceans
23. The Biological Interactions
24. Sea Level
25. Global Climate Change – The
Immediate Past
26. Is There an Analog for the Future
Climate?
27. The Instrumental temperature Record
11. Global Climate Change – The
Future
Thinking about Earth’s future climate
Shortly after taking office as President of the United States, Ronald Reagan decided
to cut off scientific exchanges with Soviet colleagues, assuming that they were
dangerous to our national security.
As a geologist, I was odd man out in that small group of (otherwise)
distinguished climate scientists meeting in Leningrad with a small group of Soviet
counterparts. We were supposed to somehow find out if they really had a weapon
that could change the weather. The Soviet group was headed by their most
distinguished climate scientist, Mikhail Budyko, director of the Division for Climate
Change Research at the State Hydrological Institute in Leningrad.
Leningrad, now again St. Petersburg, is a beautiful city – the Venice of the north.
Leningrad - July - 1982
Mikhail Budyko
Budyko pioneered the idea that
serious climate change might
occur in the near future.
He recognized the importance
of CO2 emissions as a factor in
climate change.
He recognized the importance
of the ice-albedo effect.
He realized that the Arctic
was the ‘Achilles heel’ of
Earth’s climate system
• At a dinner in the Astoria
Hotel I asked Budyko if the
Arctic sea ice cover could
really ever melt. He told
me: “Its going to happen.”
He thought it would be
about the end of the next
century.
• The Arctic sea ice almost
disappeared in 2007, that is
when I realized things were
changing faster than
expected and started to
write the book.
•
It’s going to happen.
An even greater meltback
is occurring in 2012.
Strolling back to my hotel after the dinner –
almost midnight – the Winter Palace
Turning to look back -The General Staff Building
from Palace Square
The Peter and Paul Fortress seen across the Neva from the Winter Palace
just after midnight during early July – the bridges are starting to be raised
• In 1975 Wally Broecker published a paper in the journal Science
with the title
• Climate Change; Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global
Warming?
• It had the following abstract:
If man-made dust is unimportant as a major cause of climatic
change, then a strong case can be made that the present cooling
trend will, within a decade or so, give way to a pronounced warming
induced by carbon dioxide. By analogy with similar events in the
past, the natural climatic cooling which, since 1940, has more than
compensated for the carbon dioxide effect, will soon bottom out.
Once this happens, the exponential rise in the atmospheric carbon
dioxide content will tend to become a significant factor and by
early in the next century will have driven the mean planetary
temperature beyond the limits experienced during the last 1000
years.
• Many people labor under the misconception that “global warming”
means a gradual rise in temperature by a few degrees.
• If that were the problem it would seem simple enough to take
care of. Noel Coward noted in his song that “Only mad dogs and
Englishmen go out in the noonday sun.” We could just stay
indoors or in the shade. However, that is not all it means.
• At the 1982 annual meeting of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C., German
climatologist Herman Flohn made the prophetic comment:
• “Long before global warming due to CO2 can be proven, its
effect will be noticed by extremes of weather, setting local
records such as the highest and lowest temperatures, greatest
and least rain and snowfall amounts, most powerful storms,
unusually large numbers of tornados, etc. These indicate that
the climate system is becoming unstable in response to the
greenhouse effect.”
Global Warming or Global Weirding
In 2010 Tom Friedman, in an Op Ed
to the New York Times, suggested
that we replace the expression
‘Global Warming’ by ‘Global Weirding’
because the effect of planetary
warming is not evenly distributed and
gradual, but is reflected by the
unexpected extreme weather
conditions suggested by Herman
Flohn in 1982.
Photo of Tom Friedman by Fred R. Conrad
The New York Times
The author’s background
• Education
– BS Southern Methodist University
• Junior Year in Munich – Ludwig-Maximilian Universität
München - Germany
– MS University of Illinois (Ostracoda)
• Graduate study – Universität Zürich / Eidgenossiche
Technische Hochschule -Switzerland
– PhD Stanford University (Foraminifera)
– Postdoctoral Year - Universität Basel –Switzerland
- (Calcareous Nannoplankton)
The Author’s Professional Career
At times he held two positions concurrently
Italics = Guest Professor
1960-73 - University of Illinois
1967-82 - University of Miami - Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences
1968 - Hebrew University – Jerusalem
1972-90 University College, University of London, Great Britain
1979-82 - Joint Oceanographic Institutions, Washington DC – DSDP/OMDP/ODP
1982-98 - University of Colorado at Boulder – Museum, Geology, CIIRES
1988-89 - Ludwig-Maximilian’s Universität – Munich, Germany
1990-2002 - GEOMAR – Christian-Albrecht’s Universität – Kiel, Germany
1993 - Universiteit Utrecht, The Netherlands
1993 - Institut für Ostseekunde – Warnemünde, Germany
1995 - Universität Wien, Austria
1996 - Ernst-Moritz-Arndt Universität – Greifswald, Germany
2010 - Universität Wien, Austria
Retired from University of Colorado, Boulder, 1998
Retired from Christian-Albrecht’s Universität zu Kiel in 2002
Since 2002 he has taught
intensive short courses in
Paleoclimatology and
Paleoceanology in:
Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Utrecht, The Netherlands
Shanghai, China
Milan, Italy
Bremen, Germany
Beijing, China
Vienna, Austria
Frankfurt am Main, Germany
What is science?
Science is an unending voyage of discovery. Simply, it is a search
for truth.
Absolute truth seems to be restricted to mathematics. In all other
fields we can only hope to make ever closer approximations to the
truth. The search for truth involves making observations and
performing experiments; in short, gathering factual information.
The results lead to the development of one or more “hypotheses”
to explain the observations or the outcomes of the experiments. An
hypothesis makes predictions about the outcome of further
investigations or experiments.
Hypotheses that have passed many tests achieve recognition as
being close approximations to truth and are referred to as
“theories.” A theory which stands the test of time can become a
“Law.”
Use of Semantics to Confuse the Public
It is important to realize that the use of the word ‘theory’ in its scientific
context is quite different from its use in everyday conversational English,
where ‘theory’ is often used to refer to an hypothesis that has not been
tested.
Fundamentalist ‘Christian’ Creationists take full advantage of the fact that
the general public is not aware of the different usage when they say
“evolution is, after all, just a theory.”
The fact that Darwinian evolution is considered a theory by scientists
means that it has withstood many tests and been found over and over again
to be the simplest explanation of observed facts.
As Gerry Spence pointed out during the O J Simpson murder trial – a
criminal trial is not a search for the truth – it is an effort to free or
convict someone accused of a crime.
Occam’s Razor
• William of Ockham, Franciscan monk
– lex parsimoniae
• "entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem“
• ""All other things being equal, the simplest solution is
the best."
• Pope John XXII summoned him to Avignon in
1324 to stand trial for whatever crime this
might have been
– While the church authorities were trying to figure
out what kind of heresy this was, William escaped to
Bavaria where came under protection of Ludwig IV
– Ludwig IV had himself named Emperor of the Holy
Roman Empire
– He then appointed another Franciscan monk, Peitro
Rainalducci, to be his own Antipope, Nicholas V,
residing in Rome
– Problem solved
– The Incident is memorialized in the Munich suburb
München-Schwabing by Occamstrasse
Experimental vs Observational Science
• The experimental sciences develop knowledge
by performing experiments. The are Physics,
Chemistry, and Biology.
• The observational sciences develop by
observing nature. They are Geology and
Astronomy.
• Climatology is somewhere in between. We learn
from laboratory experiments, observations, and
now – by conducting a grand uncontrolled
experiment on our own planet
An Early Warning
The carbon dioxide theory is the only one that
predicts a continually rising average temperature
for the remainder of this century because of the
accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
as a result of industrial activity. In fact the
temperature rise from this cause may be so large
in several centuries that it will present a serious
problem to future generations. The removal of
vast quantities of carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere would be an extremely costly
operation. If at the end of this century the
average temperature has continued to rise and in
addition measurement also shows that the
atmospheric carbon dioxide amount has also
increased, then it will be firmly established that
carbon dioxide is a determining factor in causing
climatic change.
— Gilbert Plass, Texas A&M University, in The
American Scientist, 1956.
The Grand Geophysical Experiment
Human beings are now carrying out a large
scale geophysical experiment of a kind that
could not have happened in the past nor
reproduced in the future. Within a few
centuries we are returning to the atmosphere
and oceans the concentrated organic carbon
stored in sedimentary rocks over hundreds of
millions of years.. This experiment, if
adequately documented, may yield a farreaching insight into the processes
determining weather and climate.
— Roger Revelle and Hans Suess, Scripps
Institution of Oceanography, in Tellus, 1957.
Summary - What is science?
• A search for truth
– Observation
– Hypothesis
– Theory
• Use of the word ‘Theory’ is different in science and
common speech
– Science – An hypothesis that has beeen tested over and over
and found to be true becomes a theory
– General – Pure speculation
Religious fundamentalists:
» Evolution is, after all, just a theory «
Civilization
‘Civilization’ has developed during the last 6,000 years
This has been the longest period of climate stability in the
last half million years
– Sea level has been constant
– Climate changes have been small and short-lived
But then came the ‘industrial revolution’
And now Earth’s climate is becoming unstable and
beginning to change
The natural course of events has been
altered by humans
•
•
•
•
Development of agriculture
Domestication of animals
Urbanization
Industrial Revolution
–
–
–
–
–
–
Introducing greenhouse gasses
Changing the planetary albedo
Replacing C3 with C4 plants
Hard-surfacing the landscape
Changing the hydrologic cycle
Mining metals and fuels
• Population Growth
All this leads to
An uncertain future