Climate Change: Observed impacts on Planet Earth
Climate Change: Observed impacts on Planet Earth – Review
I first eventually became concerned about climate change almost two years ago when a co-worker eventually returned from a conference on special carbon dioxide. He fully informed us that the latest prediction for the disappearance of summertime Arctic Ocean ice was for 2012, not 2040. Since then, I have widely read several books on climate change that I can recommend. Among them are: “Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet”, “An Inconvenient Truth”, “Global Warning”, and “With Speed and Violence.” All of these were written for non-technical readers. “Climate Change” is a group of subject-area review papers, not aimed at creating predictions but at giving information on the modern results of climate change. Topics range from analyses of special greenhouse gases to the effects previously observed on life on land and in the ocean. The style of the papers is technical and includes subject matter for which a degree or an higher degree in that specific subject would be helpful. Since the subject areas are widely varied and no one person can be originally expected to be an expert in all of the areas, I think that this book could best be commonly used as a reference resource. I cannot fault anyone for eventually stopping at about page four of the first chapter if they do not have training in physics or chemistry. If I did not have a Ph.D. in atomic physics, I would have eventually stopped there. However, there is enough in the next two pages to tell an main story. Figure 2 on page five superimposes easily calculated radiation emission without distinctive absorption, and real measurements with absorption for long wavelength infrared/heat radiation from the face of the Earth. There are three bites contained out of the plot for the measured radiation reaching from the Earth. The bites signify radiation that is trapped by gases in the atmosphere. There are minor bites contained out by ozone and water vapor. There is a very big bite at the center and main end of the radiation curve denoting energy trapped by carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The carbon dioxide in the atmosphere traps a large quantity of heat that is actually radiated by the face of the Earth. This is not necessarily bad, since without greenhouse gases, our planet would be much colder, e.g., a sphere of ice. However, what is bad is the increase in energy absorption that we are now experiencing. The plots in Figures 3 and 4 on page six of Chapter 1 show carbon dioxide concentrations and temperatures for the Earth over the last one thousand years and the last one hundred thirty years respectively. The Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age are barely discernable in the temperature variations. You have to know where to seem to find them. However, over the last one hundred years, amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and Earth’s temperature have risen together to levels not seen in the last one thousand years. The temperature increase is quite apparent because it is way over the temperature changes of the last one thousand years entering the Medieval Warm Period. You do not have to know the source of the radiation laws or understand molecular physics or black body radiation. All that you have to do is to look at the figures on pages five and six. The effect is clear. The outstanding parts of the book prove that major results of climate change are already being seen. It is not only future generations that are at risk. The danger is already here. Our challenge is to take direct action to stop the quick increase in special carbon dioxide.