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25 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Climate Change
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The most accurate measurements available indicate that the Earth is rapidly getting warmer- this is not a political statement, but based on observable facts
The earth has warmed worldwide by 0.8 C Celsius, 1.4 Fahrenheit in the last 100 yeas, with most of that increase occurring since 1980 • Rate of increase is speeding up |
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Climate Change Predictions
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During this century, current calculations predict that global temperatures will increase by another 2.9C (5.2F) at the low wend or as much as 6.4C (11.5) at the high end
-depend on high, moderate, low or constant emissions of CO2 |
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Climate Change: Ice Coverage
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-In recent decades, ice coverage has been dramatically reduced
Ex.) Arctic sea ice -Now possible for ordinary ships to traverse the Northwest Passage thru the arctic ocean |
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Climate Change: Greenland Melting
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Greenland ice cap experienced near total surface melting (97%) in July 2012
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Climate Change: Desertification
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Greenland ice cap experienced near total surface melting (97%) in July 2012
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Climate Change:
Temperature Records |
Summer 2012- over 100 high temperature records per day in July 2012, out numbered cold record for 2012 by 17:1
The earth is getting warmer- • 2012 was the warmers year since accurate records have been kept • 2011 was the warmest year ever before 2012 • 2012 was the warmest year before 2011 |
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Climate Change: Global Efforts
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-The national scientific academics of all leading industrial nations agree that climate change is happening
-In Dec. 2012, representatives of all major industrial countries met in Doha, Qatar, to try to develop a plan for reducing the rate of temperature increase -The USA Opted out of the last agreement- the Kyoto Protocols and this recent conference resulted in no definitive plan |
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Climate Change: Maldives Situation
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Sea Level rise in the Maldives Islands
-a series of small tropical islands, w/ coral reefs -80% of the islands of Maldives are 1 m or < above SL -worlds lowest lying country -Sea level rise byend of century may be 2 m -Maldives human pop of 250,00 faces severe problems with fresh drinking water; must be brought in by boat -Current pres of Maldives, is actually looking for a new homeland for the Maldivians, possibly India -No country ever successfully moved its entire population and environmental refugees are not recognized by international law |
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Climate Change: Other low lying areas
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Fiji, Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Tuvalu, all in the Pacific
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Climate Change: Louisa Land Loss
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• LA is projected to lose ~700 mi ^2 of coastal land by 2025, an area approximately the size of the greater DC- Baltimore area
• Main reason- sea level rise due to warming temperatures |
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Climate Change :
Melting permafrost |
• LA is projected to lose ~700 mi ^2 of coastal land by 2025, an area approximately the size of the greater DC- Baltimore area
• Main reason- sea level rise due to warming temperatures |
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Climate Change:
Methane seeps |
Methane seeps release large amounts of CH4 into atmosphere- a ticking time bomb
• Methane as a ghg is 25X more powerful than CO2 • More than 150,000 sites in the Arctic have been identified where large amounts of methane are being released • It forms from decaying plant material on the bottom of lake and ponds |
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Climate Change:
Ice shelves in Greenland |
Ice shelves break off of Greenland Ice Cap
• Large areas of the ice cap of Greenland have been breaking off and floating out ot seas- the one in the pictures involved an area three time the size of NYC |
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Climate Change:
Mt. Kilimanjaro |
Ice shelves break off of Greenland Ice Cap
• Large areas of the ice cap of Greenland have been breaking off and floating out ot seas- the one in the pictures involved an area three time the size of NYC |
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Climate Change:
Extreme Weather |
‘Super-storm’ Hurricane sand linked to global warming
• UN climate panel believes that there likely is a link between the severity of Sandy and Climate change • An example of the type of severe weather events that they predict will happen even as the overall number of individual hurricanes decreases |
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Climate Change:
Possible impacts over next 50-100 years |
• Continued melting of glacial ice & reduction in volume of Antarctic and Greenland ice caps
• Sea level rise, submerging low lying coastal areas including many major cities • More frequent and severe heat waves and drought • Expansion of deserts at the expense of areas that can produce important food crops • Increase in severe weather events and unstable and unpredictable weather • Damage to or destruction of sensitive ecosystems as climate patterns shifts • Likely extinction of species with narrow range of ecological tolerance (e.g. polar bears) |
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Climate Change: Loss of human life
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Human deaths due to climate change could reach 100 million by 2030- mainly in poor developing countries
• Melting ice caps extreme weather events, drought and rising seas levels are main factors • Currently it is estimated that 5 million death occur each year form air pollution hunger disease and other factors related to climate change and intense industrial economies • Losses in agriculture production |
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Climate Change: Why is it changing?
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• Due to external forcing – event that happen outside [of external] to normal climate cycles
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Climate Change: Possible external Force factors
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• Change in amount of solar radiation
• Large increase of decrease in volcanic eruption • Change in earth’s orbit • Change in tilt of Earth’s axis • Change in atmospheric gasses |
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Climate Change: Fossil fuels
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Very tight fit between the increase in temps and greatly increased rate of emission of greenhouse gasses through burning of fossil fuels
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Climate Change: GHGs from industriy
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CO2
CH4 Ozone CFCs N2O |
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Climate Change
Fossil fuel users |
The heaviest users of fossil fuels are the USA, China, Brazil, followed by India and Russia then western Europe and Canada, Developing countries emit relatively much less
These stresses and strains will occur as world pop continues to grow and predicted to reach 10 billion by 2050 |
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Climate Change
What can be done? |
• Reduction of use of fossil fuels by conservation & using alternative energy: Solar, geothermal, nuclear
• Geo-engineering techniques to remove ghg form the atmosphere and try to adapt to the new climate hat is emerging |
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Climate Change: radical Idea
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•placing solar shield in space to reduce amount of solar radiation reaching earth
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Ultimate Global Change
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The ultimate ‘global change’ will not be global warming due to human activity
• in ~1 billion years, the intensity of solar radiation from our sun will increase to the point that all liquid water on the surface will be boiled away probably ending life as we know it on this earth • in 5 billion years the sun will enter in Red Giant phase , expand outward and consume earth |
