The greenhouse gases are well mixed in the atmostphere. However, ass the height increases the water vapour becomes less important since it freezes out due to the decreasing temperature so that carbon dioxide becomes the largest contributor to the absorption of infrared radiation.
TERRY SLOAN INTRODUCTORY CLIMATE SCIENCE; GLOBAL WARMING EXPLAINED Download free eBooks at bookboon.com Introductory Climate Science; Global Warming Explained 1st edition © 2016 Terry Sloan & bookboon.com ISBN 978-87-403-1408-3 Peer review by Michael J Hambrey, Emeritus Professor of Glaciology, Aberystwyth University Download free eBooks at bookboon.com INTRODUCTORY CLIMATE SCIENCE; GLOBAL WARMING EXPLAINED CONTENTS CONTENTS Foreword Preface Man-Made Global Warming – an overview 11 1.1 Introduction 11 1.2 Why greenhouse gases cause global warming? 16 1.3 A simple picture of man-made global warming 18 1.4 The more complete picture 21 1.5 Conclusion 23 Drivers of the Climate 26 2.1 The difference between weather and climate 26 2.2 Overview of the climate 27 2.3 Heat energy transfer 32 2.4 The Sun 34 2.5 Warming of the Earth’s surface due to greenhouse gases 37 2.6 Conclusion 41 www.sylvania.com We not reinvent the wheel we reinvent light Fascinating lighting offers an ininite spectrum of possibilities: Innovative technologies and new markets provide both opportunities and challenges An environment in which your expertise is in high demand Enjoy the supportive working atmosphere within our global group and beneit from international career paths Implement sustainable ideas in close cooperation with other specialists and contribute to inluencing our future Come and join us in reinventing light every day Light is OSRAM Download free eBooks at bookboon.com Click on the ad to read more INTRODUCTORY CLIMATE SCIENCE; GLOBAL WARMING EXPLAINED CONTENTS The Atmosphere 44 3.1 Structure of the atmosphere 44 3.2 Variation of pressure with altitude 46 3.3 Variation of temperature with altitude in the troposphere – the lapse rate 48 3.4 The Stratosphere 49 3.5 The ozone layer 51 3.6 The atmospheric electric circuit 52 3.7 Conclusions 54 The Principles of Cloud Formation 57 4.1 Introduction 58 4.2 Constituents of clouds 59 4.3 Surface Tension 61 4.4 Vapour pressure 62 4.5 The formation of cloud droplets from CCN 63 4.6 The effect of electric charge on the formation of water droplets 67 4.7 Cosmic rays and cloud formation 69 4.8 The hypothesis that ionization affects cloud formation 72 4.9 Attempts to corroborate the hypothesised connection between 4.10 cosmic rays and the climate 72 Conclusions 75 Appendix 4.1 The pressure inside a curved surface due to surface tension 76 Appendix 4.2 Derivation of the Kelvin Formula 77 Energy circulation and monitoring 83 5.1 The seasons 84 5.2 Energy circulation 84 5.3 Coriolis acceleration 85 5.4 The wind direction 86 5.5 Atmospheric circulation 87 5.6 The circulation of the oceans 89 5.7 Monitoring of the oceans and atmosphere 93 5.8 The rising sea level 96 Download free eBooks at bookboon.com INTRODUCTORY CLIMATE SCIENCE; GLOBAL WARMING EXPLAINED CONTENTS Absorption of infra-red radiation 100 6.1 Atomic spectra 101 6.2 Molecular spectra 102 6.3 The broadening of spectral lines 104 6.4 Absorption of radiation 106 6.5 The absorbance of the atmosphere 110 6.6 Conclusions 110 Appendix A6.1 Semi-classical argument to justify equation 6.2 110 Appendix A6.2 Doppler broadening of spectral lines – proof of equation 6.4 111 Climate Models 114 7.1 Introduction 114 7.2 Warming of the Earth’s surface by greenhouse gases 114 7.3 The effect of increasing carbon dioxide levels – a simple picture 116 7.4 More complete models of the climate 122 7.5 Radiative Forcing (RF) 123 7.6 Conclusions 127 Appendix A7 Derivation of equation 7.2 128 Measurement of the average global temperature 133 8.1 Introduction 134 8.2 Determination of the average temperatures from measurements on the Earth’s surface 135 8.3 Measurements from space 141 8.4 Comparison of satellite and surface measurements of the global average temperature 143 Appendix A8 Basic statistics 147 History of the Earth and its climate 158 9.1 Introduction 159 9.2 Formation of the Solar System 159 9.3 The Early Earth 162 9.4 The Phanerozoic Eon starting about 540 million years ago 166 9.5 The last several million years 169 9.6 Conclusion 179 Appendix A9.1 Fourier Analysis 180 Download free eBooks at bookboon.com INTRODUCTORY CLIMATE SCIENCE; GLOBAL WARMING EXPLAINED CONTENTS 10 The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 186 10.1 Introduction to the IPCC 186 10.2 Climate Forcings 187 10.3 Components of the scientific task 187 10.4 Climate Modelling 188 10.5 The ‘balancing-out process’ 189 10.6 The IPCC Review Process 190 10.7 The IPCC’s caution 191 10.8 The IPCC report AR5 191 10.9 Governmental Responses to the IPCC 193 11 Epilogue 197 Endnotes 202 Download free eBooks at bookboon.com INTRODUCTORY CLIMATE SCIENCE; GLOBAL WARMING EXPLAINED FOREWORD FOREWORD Climate Change is one of the burning issues of the day (no pun intended) and it is crucial to understand the nature of the reason or reasons for the undoubted average Global temperature change over the past century, or so A number of text books on the topic have appeared, written in the main by meteorologists, and the conclusion is invariably that man-made emissions are responsible However, there have been criticisms from some nonmeteorologists, that their analyses are, if not lawed, seriously suspect his is where the present book comes in It is written by a distinguished elementary particle physicist who has no axe to grind and who is keen to go back to basics and analyse the physics involved To say that the book is comprehensive is an understatement It ranges from the basic science in question, to such topics as the History of the Solar System and the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Although written as an undergraduate text, and indeed the topics have served that purpose, it can be read by most people who have some knowledge of science; a summary should be prescribed reading for all politicians who have responsibility for the Earth's continued well being (Sir) Arnold Wolfendale FRS, 14th Astronomer Royal and former President of the Institute of Physics and the European Physical Society Download free eBooks at bookboon.com INTRODUCTORY CLIMATE SCIENCE; GLOBAL WARMING EXPLAINED PREFACE PREFACE his book is intended to explain the basic principles of the science which lies behind the subject of man-made global warming It is based on a series of lectures given as an optional course for physics undergraduates at Lancaster University he course was named “he Physics of Global Warming” As beits a scientiic study of a subject, quantitative treatments are given and the book contains algebra and formulae Nevertheless it should be possible for a person with a non-mathematical background to read through these formulae and achieve an understanding of why the increasing concentration of greenhouse gases arising from burning fossil fuels leads to global warming he term greenhouse gases here means mainly carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and oxides of nitrogen My background is in particle physics and I became interested in climatology when it was hypothesised by some scientists that cosmic rays were the main cause of global warming rather than increasing greenhouse gas concentrations Attempts were then made by myself and coworkers, all particle or cosmic ray physicists, to corroborate the hypothesis he conclusion of this work was that while cosmic rays must have some efect on global warming via cloud formation, the efect is too small to be detected and therefore only plays a minor role Subsequent to this I became interested in trying to understand why changes in the small concentrations of greenhouse gases could lead to signiicant global warming Having achieved at least a qualitative understanding of this, the course referred to above was designed and given Another reason to be interested in this subject stemmed from reading accounts in the popular press and on the internet which often deny that man-made global warming is occurring I felt it necessary to gain enough understanding to be able to judge the quality of such accounts his book aims to allow the reader to be able to separate the science from the pseudo-science which surrounds this subject Download free eBooks at bookboon.com INTRODUCTORY CLIMATE SCIENCE; GLOBAL WARMING EXPLAINED PREFACE Nowadays, the hypothesis that increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere cause global warming is almost universally accepted as the paradigm among expert climatologists and it is accepted by all learned societies of the World he organisation responsible for overseeing and reviewing all the scientiic literature which leads us to this conclusion is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) his is a panel of many hundreds of the World’s foremost experts on climate science he work of the panel is described in Chapter 10 and is summarised in publically available Assessment Reports (AR) which have been released so far he irst AR is labelled FAR, the second SAR, third TAR, the fourth AR4 and the latest one released in 2014 is AR5 hese reports, running to thousands of pages, are all available on the World Wide Web at http://www.ippc.ch/ he reader is referred to these reports for further details of the theories and measurements and the references to the scientiic papers where they are described his book is meant to serve as a starting primer Chapter of the book gives a qualitative (i.e non-mathematical) overview of the basic reasons why our increased use of fossil fuels will lead to global warming and ultimately a change to the climate he subsequent chapters describe the main features of the climate and the principles of the science which leads to these conclusions In the journey to achieve the understanding to permit me to write this book I have been helped by many people I am particularly indebted to my colleagues Professor Anatoly Erlykin and Professor Sir Arnold Wolfendale for many stimulating discussions I am also indebted to Professor Fred Taylor of Oxford University for his book Elementary Climate Science from which I learned much and for his help to further my understanding of the subject I am grateful also to Professors Joanna Haigh and Giles Harrison for help on many topics I also thank Professor Sir John Houghton for his assistance in writing Chapter 10 Particular thanks go to Professor Mike Hambrey for his suggestions and his critical reading of the manuscript Finally I thank my Wife, Jean, for her love and encouragement to carry on even when writing became a chore T Sloan (April 2016) Download free eBooks at bookboon.com 10 .. .TERRY SLOAN INTRODUCTORY CLIMATE SCIENCE; GLOBAL WARMING EXPLAINED Download free eBooks at bookboon.com Introductory Climate Science; Global Warming Explained 1st edition © 2016 Terry Sloan. .. became a chore T Sloan (April 2016) Download free eBooks at bookboon.com 10 INTRODUCTORY CLIMATE SCIENCE; GLOBAL WARMING EXPLAINED MAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING – AN OVERVIEW MAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING – AN... bookboon.com INTRODUCTORY CLIMATE SCIENCE; GLOBAL WARMING EXPLAINED CONTENTS CONTENTS Foreword Preface Man-Made Global Warming – an overview 11 1.1 Introduction 11 1.2 Why greenhouse gases cause global warming?