Monday, March 31, 2014
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Monday, March 24, 2014
Climate Change Past to Present
1. Based on the readings the general synopsis of the research is that the warming of the recent 1,500 years or so are unprecedented, meaning not that it is simply not consistent with the past patterns. The research used data from 73 temperature stations around the world and have been able to pretty accurately reconstruct the Earth's climate since the last ice age, and fairly well of the past ~11,300 years. The research shows that the Earth's temperatures have been warmer recently than it has been over that last ~11,300 years, approximately warmer than ~75% of the time period. The most critical piece of the paper examines future climate changes and projects that by the year 2100 the temperatures will exceed the previous maximums of the Halocene period under possible scenarios influenced by greenhouse emissions.
2. The three key findings of the study are as follows:
- Over the past ~5,000 years the Earth has cooled ~1.3 degrees F, but in the past ~100 years it has warmed ~1.3 degrees F (mainly in the North where more land masses and human life exists).
- The temperatures over the whole Halocene period are warmer now more than about ~75% of the last ~11,300 years, which is the span of human existence as far as we know.
- Finally, there is the prediction that temperatures will rise another 2.0-11.5 degrees F by the end of the century (the year 2100), saying that it is largely dependent on the amount of carbon emissions in the upcoming years.
3. They key graph shows the overall changes and prospective changes that have and could occur to our planet in terms of global temperature. There is a clear sign that the temperatures have decreased previous to the current period, but now there seems to be a sharp increase heading into this century. The projections are also shown and is visible that the temperatures are expected to rise past the highs of the Halocene period, within the century.
2. The three key findings of the study are as follows:
- Over the past ~5,000 years the Earth has cooled ~1.3 degrees F, but in the past ~100 years it has warmed ~1.3 degrees F (mainly in the North where more land masses and human life exists).
- The temperatures over the whole Halocene period are warmer now more than about ~75% of the last ~11,300 years, which is the span of human existence as far as we know.
- Finally, there is the prediction that temperatures will rise another 2.0-11.5 degrees F by the end of the century (the year 2100), saying that it is largely dependent on the amount of carbon emissions in the upcoming years.
3. They key graph shows the overall changes and prospective changes that have and could occur to our planet in terms of global temperature. There is a clear sign that the temperatures have decreased previous to the current period, but now there seems to be a sharp increase heading into this century. The projections are also shown and is visible that the temperatures are expected to rise past the highs of the Halocene period, within the century.
Figure 1:Information above explains the graph.
4. Michael Mann argues that the take home point of the study is that the rate and magnitude of recent global warming is unprecedented in the past ~4,000 years, and in the past ~11,000 years the rate is unprecedented. This means that there is a noticed increase that not only seems to be going past the highs of the past, but also that the rate at which the temperature is increasing is something so sharp that has not been seen before, and could be rising to levels higher than ever before.
5. Robert Rohde expresses concerns for the magnitude of the warming based on the study. He says that the magnitude of the estimated warming is slightly larger than he had previously believed and that this can be useful when trying to understand and learn the past magnitude of changes and how forcing and other factors work in affecting global warming or change. He does have one issue with the study finding that the high frequency variability is suppressed and therefore it is hard to make connections and comparisons between rapid changing events like the warming in the past century.
6. Richard Alley says the big picture of the study is that we want to know if past warming or cooling was natural and if the changes of temperature were faster or slower than previous. He says that the recent changes do not necessarily project the changes now perfectly and if there were an error in determining the past changes, then it could affect our predictions to either be better or worse than what could actually occur.
7. Roger Pielke Jr. says that the data was grossly misused in terms of representing the data to the public. In the graph above there is a spike in the data since about the 1900's, but Pielke says that anything past 1900 cannot be concluded. This graph makes predictions which is not data and can be quite misleading, so he suggests that we fix the mistake to not include the spike until we actually have conclusive data to support such predictions.
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Poster designs
http://www.kumc.edu/SAH/OTEd/jradel/Poster_Presentations/PstrStart.html
The link above is a good source to go through step by step process of what is useful to be included onto poster presentations and what is not needed. Right from the start it gives a basic layout of a poster idea, and the reading is small and easy to navigate through and with good visuals to see rather than just read or hear another person say this is good and this is bad. It actually gives good visuals to either base ideas off of or to just use in bits and pieces as someone would do their own project.
abacus.bates.edu/~bpfohl/posters/
I really think this second link is useful specifically to us, because it caters to the use of PowerPoint in making a poster presentation. It gives little details that are helpful to make a poster look professional and to make it look as though there were actually time put into the project.
The link above is a good source to go through step by step process of what is useful to be included onto poster presentations and what is not needed. Right from the start it gives a basic layout of a poster idea, and the reading is small and easy to navigate through and with good visuals to see rather than just read or hear another person say this is good and this is bad. It actually gives good visuals to either base ideas off of or to just use in bits and pieces as someone would do their own project.
abacus.bates.edu/~bpfohl/posters/
I really think this second link is useful specifically to us, because it caters to the use of PowerPoint in making a poster presentation. It gives little details that are helpful to make a poster look professional and to make it look as though there were actually time put into the project.
What causes Ice Ages?
It seems from the readings that ice ages are caused by many things, including Carbon dioxide and methane concentrations, changes in the Earth's orbit around the sun (Milankovitch Cycyles), and the motion of tectonic plates resulting in the relative location and the amount of continental and oceanic crust on the Earth's surface. Most of the issues begin with the idea that the Milankovitch cycle creates a period, in the North, that causes snow to not melt in the summer time from previous seasons. This is caused from lower than needed temperatures and as this cooling happens snow accumulates and keeps continuing up until it reaches areas that are warm enough for it to melt. As the snow is unable to melt it causes Carbon dioxide levels and temperature to decrease causing a period in which the cold only exist, from not enough heat getting trapped and instead reflected by the snow and becomes huge ice sheets that cover a mast amount of the Northern continents. There are of course other influences, such as winds taking water vapor to lower latitudes and ocean currents taking warmer water lower as well, but the main ideas behind the cause of an ice age are the period listed above.
Figure 1: This shows how ice ages can occur,more specifically the Milankovitch cycle. The Earth axis tilt over time and at points when the North or south is as far away as possible there comes the point when temperatures fail to reach a critical value to melt the ice and snow.
Monday, March 17, 2014
Tipping Points
One such tipping point listed in the Kerry paper was the runaway greenhouse effect, which talks about an increase of water vapor in the air leading to the oceans and water sources to dry up from increased heat and the cycle that would keep going until the earth was waterless and the heat created would cause the effects of an inferno, basically too hot for human life.
Another is the idea that the more snow that develops and spreads across the Earth will cause more heat and sunlight to be reflected back and would increase the amount of ice and snow covering the Earth until it is completely covered and there is no heat getting in to melt the snow and ice. A recent theory kind of shuts down this idea saying that without any water carbon dioxide could not be absorbed and the greenhouse effect would eventually melt the snow and ice.
One thought about a tipping point in the oceans was mentioned in Sanders' article and said basically that changes in temperature and acidity in oceans could cause a tipping point for coral reef ecosystems causing the cycle to change drastically or completely fail.
He also mentions in that article that melting in Antarctica can lead to a rise in sea and ocean temperatures as the increase in heat creates more melting of ice. The more water and less snow and ice would result in more warming, because of more sunlight absorption by water as compared to snow and ice.
Then the Levitan article talks about more of a domino effect stating that the melting in the Arctic could cause a rise in temperature and spread down northern continents creating a domino effect of increased heat started from the Arctic. Although most have said there is no clear evidence to predict that there is a tipping point for sure, they do not want to rule it out and feel that something should be done such as trying to reduce our emissions, to lessen our effects on the greenhouse effect.
The ones that seem to be the most likely to occur in recent years are the two mentioned by Sanders, being that the sea levels could rise, it states by up to 3 feet by 2200, and our heat from emissions needs to be reduced to stop this and coral reef ecosystems. Then, Levitan's domino effect is more of a slow change, but says there could be a point of no return which we simply cannot guess exactly at this point. Finally, the two extremes of the fire and ice world, seem to be not really something that could happen soon, but it does get people to think that ok this in theory could happen so lets not try and push it past a point of reversing.
Reliability: I think all these articles are quite reliable and list many of the same scientists, some being known as leading scientist, others were still well respected. So overall they were good sources.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-global-tipping-points-exist/
http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2013/12/03/report-warns-of-climate-change-tipping-points-within-our-lifetime/
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5OYZdqOzxSLa3hSdE9GX0FycFE/edit
Another is the idea that the more snow that develops and spreads across the Earth will cause more heat and sunlight to be reflected back and would increase the amount of ice and snow covering the Earth until it is completely covered and there is no heat getting in to melt the snow and ice. A recent theory kind of shuts down this idea saying that without any water carbon dioxide could not be absorbed and the greenhouse effect would eventually melt the snow and ice.
One thought about a tipping point in the oceans was mentioned in Sanders' article and said basically that changes in temperature and acidity in oceans could cause a tipping point for coral reef ecosystems causing the cycle to change drastically or completely fail.
He also mentions in that article that melting in Antarctica can lead to a rise in sea and ocean temperatures as the increase in heat creates more melting of ice. The more water and less snow and ice would result in more warming, because of more sunlight absorption by water as compared to snow and ice.
Then the Levitan article talks about more of a domino effect stating that the melting in the Arctic could cause a rise in temperature and spread down northern continents creating a domino effect of increased heat started from the Arctic. Although most have said there is no clear evidence to predict that there is a tipping point for sure, they do not want to rule it out and feel that something should be done such as trying to reduce our emissions, to lessen our effects on the greenhouse effect.
The ones that seem to be the most likely to occur in recent years are the two mentioned by Sanders, being that the sea levels could rise, it states by up to 3 feet by 2200, and our heat from emissions needs to be reduced to stop this and coral reef ecosystems. Then, Levitan's domino effect is more of a slow change, but says there could be a point of no return which we simply cannot guess exactly at this point. Finally, the two extremes of the fire and ice world, seem to be not really something that could happen soon, but it does get people to think that ok this in theory could happen so lets not try and push it past a point of reversing.
Reliability: I think all these articles are quite reliable and list many of the same scientists, some being known as leading scientist, others were still well respected. So overall they were good sources.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-global-tipping-points-exist/
http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2013/12/03/report-warns-of-climate-change-tipping-points-within-our-lifetime/
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5OYZdqOzxSLa3hSdE9GX0FycFE/edit
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Post About Connection of Climate Change and Extreme Weather Events
The question is, what is the
connection between climate change and extreme weather events and disasters?
I would answer this question by first pointing out there is no direct evidence to prove that the increase in temperature is the ONLY cause for an increase in extreme weather events (i.e. heat waves, hurricanes, forest fires, etc.). From reading and watching videos about this information it seems though that there is a bit of a consensus to say that the increase in temperature globally leads to extreme weather events to become more likely to occur. Meaning that the increase in temperature makes it such that areas that already had forest fires, that are now hotter because of global warming, are more prone to get a forest fire. The sources that I got from touched upon the idea that climate change is so hard to connect to extreme weather events, because fires are a few steps removed from simply a temperature rise and is hard to show a direct connection. There is also an idea that climate change can also cause the cold extremes, such as increased snow, but the fact still remains there is no direct link that we can be positive to make such a call. A good way to look at the scenario would to be to compare it to studying for an exam. Take for example someone who reads the book assigned for a course. You would think that a person who does all the work is going to get a good grade, there is an assumption that doing the work increases your chances of getting a good grade on an exam. Except the fact still remains there is no way to assure that doing all the work will get that good grade, just like with climate change and extreme weather events. We notice that the increase in climate change is also caused some increases in extreme weather events, but you cannot make the assumption that it is a DIRECT cause without proof, same as you cannot say that simply reading will get you good grades(other factors like applying ones' self are important). Finally the last answer of who is Kevin Trenberth is answered by saying that he is a lead scientist that is part of the Climate Analysis Section at the USA National Center for Atmospheric Research. He is a Atmospheric scientist as well as a meteorologist that was the lead author of the IPCC Scientific Assessment of Climate Change 3 different years(1995, 2001, 2007).
Sources used:
- Based on what you just saw and read - how would you answer this question?
- What are the connections? Does it even matter?
- Is there a good analogy you can use to illustrate the connections?
- And - who is Kevin Trenberth?
I would answer this question by first pointing out there is no direct evidence to prove that the increase in temperature is the ONLY cause for an increase in extreme weather events (i.e. heat waves, hurricanes, forest fires, etc.). From reading and watching videos about this information it seems though that there is a bit of a consensus to say that the increase in temperature globally leads to extreme weather events to become more likely to occur. Meaning that the increase in temperature makes it such that areas that already had forest fires, that are now hotter because of global warming, are more prone to get a forest fire. The sources that I got from touched upon the idea that climate change is so hard to connect to extreme weather events, because fires are a few steps removed from simply a temperature rise and is hard to show a direct connection. There is also an idea that climate change can also cause the cold extremes, such as increased snow, but the fact still remains there is no direct link that we can be positive to make such a call. A good way to look at the scenario would to be to compare it to studying for an exam. Take for example someone who reads the book assigned for a course. You would think that a person who does all the work is going to get a good grade, there is an assumption that doing the work increases your chances of getting a good grade on an exam. Except the fact still remains there is no way to assure that doing all the work will get that good grade, just like with climate change and extreme weather events. We notice that the increase in climate change is also caused some increases in extreme weather events, but you cannot make the assumption that it is a DIRECT cause without proof, same as you cannot say that simply reading will get you good grades(other factors like applying ones' self are important). Finally the last answer of who is Kevin Trenberth is answered by saying that he is a lead scientist that is part of the Climate Analysis Section at the USA National Center for Atmospheric Research. He is a Atmospheric scientist as well as a meteorologist that was the lead author of the IPCC Scientific Assessment of Climate Change 3 different years(1995, 2001, 2007).
Sources used:
Feebacks
The ice-albedo feedback is the system in which snow and ice reflects back more sunlight and heat than other surfaces, therefore cooling an area, but when this ice melts it in turns is reflecting less heat back. So when the ice melts in an area such as the Arctic it will inevitably cause more ice to melt, because more heat will get trapped in the area than before and cause a trend of ice melting. Not only can heat from the sun cause this effect, but also human heating and other processes of creating heat can cause ice to melt and lead to more ice melting.
Source: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate-change/guide/science/explained/feedbacks
Source: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate-change/guide/science/explained/feedbacks
Figure 1: This separates the latitudes into three regions. At the higher latitudes you see a constant polar season, where the temperature is cooler, opposed to the central tropic region where it is consistently wet and dry and warm.
Ice Cores
Ice cores are a useful tool in predicting the past climate change. One such reason for this is that when the layers of snow fall down they trap the dust, sea-salts, ash, gas bubbles and human pollutants of the past underneath and it freezes over. The important part is that it traps all of this so we can later examine the inside chemical makeup to figure out these concentrations at separate periods. The deeper you dig to retrieve an ice core the longer period of time you can see variation of weather periods and what the area was like in the past. An important piece of information gathered from these ice cores though is the water isotopes that are known to have relationships with temperature and are good predictors at determining past temperatures beyond our records. The ability of these ice cores to trap substances and chemicals is key in helping figure out climate change, and the fact that they are layered so well helps determine time periods and how these periods changed in climate. For example salt concentrations are associated with higher winds, similar to how the water isotopes are associated with temperatures.
Source: http://climatechange.umaine.edu/icecores/IceCore/Ice_Core_101.html
Source: http://climatechange.umaine.edu/icecores/IceCore/Ice_Core_101.html
Ocean Sediments
1. Ocean sediments are special, because they can be used to find out climate change of water surfaces of oceans and of areas on continents next to these oceans.
2. Ocean sediments are good for predicting the climate of past surface water temperatures, salinity, dissolved oxygen and nutrient availability. Also using inorganic materials found in ocean sediments can be used to find information about continental humidity-aridity variations and intensities/directions of winds.
3. Things that set Ocean sediments apart from other proxies is that there are billions of tonnes found on ocean basins every year, so there is almost always availability to this source.
4. The areas that Ocean sediments truly excel is in coastal continental areas and finding out surface temperatures in the surrounding waters, these sediments are good for determining climate change of these locations. They are also able to help find these changes from ranges of thousands of years all the way to ten million years in the past.
5. Ocean Sediments would prefer to work in areas that are coastal, such as off the coast of California, Alaska, Australia, and basically anywhere that has a surrounding area of water that has sediments for study.
Source: http://www.global-climate-change.org.uk/3-3-4.php
2. Ocean sediments are good for predicting the climate of past surface water temperatures, salinity, dissolved oxygen and nutrient availability. Also using inorganic materials found in ocean sediments can be used to find information about continental humidity-aridity variations and intensities/directions of winds.
3. Things that set Ocean sediments apart from other proxies is that there are billions of tonnes found on ocean basins every year, so there is almost always availability to this source.
4. The areas that Ocean sediments truly excel is in coastal continental areas and finding out surface temperatures in the surrounding waters, these sediments are good for determining climate change of these locations. They are also able to help find these changes from ranges of thousands of years all the way to ten million years in the past.
5. Ocean Sediments would prefer to work in areas that are coastal, such as off the coast of California, Alaska, Australia, and basically anywhere that has a surrounding area of water that has sediments for study.
Source: http://www.global-climate-change.org.uk/3-3-4.php
Monday, March 3, 2014
Quatrenary Period
The Quaternary Period is classified by the series of glaciations there have been and also the increase and development of what are anatomically modern day humans. The first is basic, but to explain it a bit I would say that this period has had periods of increased and decreased coolness and glaciation. The period we are in now expanded from approximately 2.5 million years ago to today, and only today are we seeing things that were not the norms of previous years. For example, there have, as it seems, always been shifts between glaciers forming in northern Arctic and the southern Antarctic, but in periods of more cooling we see the expansion of these glaciers. Then when the period comes to an end we see the rise in temperature, which lasts roughly 10,000 to 15,000 years, known as interglacial periods. Not all areas though were getting more glacial or less, some areas were characterized by more precipitation or less, and same for snow. The one blip, if you wanna call it that, which we see in the temperature is more recently, where there is a notice of pretty drastic rising in temperature and Carbon Dioxide levels. This period otherwise has been fairly consistent in glacial expanding and retracting, but the fear that many have is that humans affect the environment in such a way that alters climate drastically.
Sources: http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/prehistoric-world/quaternary/
http://qra.org.uk/about/quaternary
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary
Sources: http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/prehistoric-world/quaternary/
http://qra.org.uk/about/quaternary
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary
Figure 1: This is a graph depicting the current Quaternary Period that we are in, spanning over the last 2.5 million years. Notice how the trends of glacial and interglacial periods are distinct with the rising and decreasing temperatures, but with more recent years staying warmer.
Ice cores and predicting past Climates
Ice cores to me seem to big a common data collection tool for how climate was in the past, especially for the Antarctic and Arctic. Theses cores are collected with a tool to extend down farther into ice structures to get a longer period of climates. These cores leave in them stored gases and other concentrations of sediments that can be used to explain the climate of that region a certain number of years ago. For example, if there is dust and sediment from volcanoes, then they can make a prediction that a volcano erupted a certain number of years in that region where the ice core was collected. Not only do they help tell the temperature, but they also can give us estimates of rainfall and snowfall during certain periods. All of these is good if we ever want to make a real change, because of any finding that shows we are causing the changes in climate that are far off from the norms of the past.
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_%28climate%29
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/paleoclimatology-data/datasets/ice-core
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_%28climate%29
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/paleoclimatology-data/datasets/ice-core
Questions to Raymond Bradely
If i were to ask him two questions they would go as the following:
1. With how much confidence can you tell me that ice cores and other artifacts can be used to accurately measure climate change?
- I would want to know this, simply because everyone says they can predict the past using ice cores and other cores, but how can anyone be sure if they were never actually there.
and 2. In your personal opinion are human factors truly harming the environment and how much do they deviate from norms?
- This is important to me, because if he cannot answer the above question then this would at least give me and understanding that they have some facts to say so. Without facts most scientists would not give an opinion or even speak on an issue.
1. With how much confidence can you tell me that ice cores and other artifacts can be used to accurately measure climate change?
- I would want to know this, simply because everyone says they can predict the past using ice cores and other cores, but how can anyone be sure if they were never actually there.
and 2. In your personal opinion are human factors truly harming the environment and how much do they deviate from norms?
- This is important to me, because if he cannot answer the above question then this would at least give me and understanding that they have some facts to say so. Without facts most scientists would not give an opinion or even speak on an issue.
Reponses to short videos
First video - The take home message from this short video is that we can use ice cores to measure tends of temperature and Carbon Dioxide levels before our data collection,and looking at today our Carbon dioxide levels are higher than ever and needs to be noticed if humans are negatively affecting the environment.
SOURCE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHzADl-XID8&feature=youtu.be
Second video - For this video i think the biggest point they made was that using chemical make up of cores can help get a fairly good idea of climate before our data collection, and even with the possible error of using cores we still see a rise in temperature now that may be out of the normal range that has been experienced over time.
SOURCE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfjkeE-ABGI&feature=youtu.be
Third video - In this video it talks about diatoms, which is basically collected from the soil at the bottom of lakes and water sources. These are used to see changes in theses diatoms over time and how they change when the climate and temperature change, but are focused on seeing over time how the changes are related to climates over time and the big picture.
SOURCE: http://phys.org/news/2013-11-diatom-algae-populations-story-climate.html
SOURCE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHzADl-XID8&feature=youtu.be
Second video - For this video i think the biggest point they made was that using chemical make up of cores can help get a fairly good idea of climate before our data collection, and even with the possible error of using cores we still see a rise in temperature now that may be out of the normal range that has been experienced over time.
SOURCE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfjkeE-ABGI&feature=youtu.be
Third video - In this video it talks about diatoms, which is basically collected from the soil at the bottom of lakes and water sources. These are used to see changes in theses diatoms over time and how they change when the climate and temperature change, but are focused on seeing over time how the changes are related to climates over time and the big picture.
SOURCE: http://phys.org/news/2013-11-diatom-algae-populations-story-climate.html
Sunday, March 2, 2014
About Paleoclimatology
Paleoclimatology is the study of climate prior to the availability of recorded data. It is studied similar to that of archeologists, but instead of using dinosaur and fossils, this data is collected through footprints left by the environment about past climates and climate trends over the years. It is important to study mainly, because we need to learn if the climate changes that we have been able to study are due to natural variations over time or whether we as humans are affecting the climate negatively.
Sources used:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/primer.html
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Paleoclimatology/paleoclimatology_intro.php
Sources used:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/primer.html
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Paleoclimatology/paleoclimatology_intro.php
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)