the greenhouse effect

Some people do not like this expression, but it suits me just fine. It is a
pretty damn good description. The light from the sun comes in, and the
greenhouse gases trap some of the heat radiated from the Earth. It’s an
energy balance. The more heat that comes in, or the more heat that is
trapped, the higher the energy balance. The bigger the ice fields, that is
the higher the albedo, the lower the Earth’s energy balance. For more
detail, see radiative forcing components diagram.

But, setting aside any changes in conditions, incoming energy from the
Sun minus energy reflected out into space from the Earth is zero. This
what is meant by an energy balance. The various ways in which the
incoming energy from the Sun interact with the Earth and its atmosphere
can be crudely seen in the series of diagrams to the left. The energetic
‘particles’ from the Sun are, by stages, converted to lower energy forms
(by particle collisions). Thus, the outgoing energy spectrum will be shifted
rightwards (towards the infra-red and beyond) of the incoming energy
spectrum, while what remains is perceived by us on Earth primarily as
light and warmth.

A fundamental error is being spread that, because a global warming gas

(forcing) is transparent to a large amount of the incoming radiation from
the sun, it cannot be having much effect in terms of warming the planet.
This is an error that ignores a real-world fact that incoming radiation is
converted to longer wave-lengths as it impacts the atmosphere and the
planetary surface. It is these longer wave-lengths that are then blanketed
from escaping back into space. If it were not for this wave-length
conversion (mechanism), the greenhouse gases (GHGs) would not be
causing the rise in the level of the Earths energy balance (examine the
graphs to the left to get some idea of how this works).

The energy balance for the Earth is about 33° Centigrade higher than it
would otherwise be if there was no greenhouse effect. The average
temperature on Earth is about 16° Centigrade. Thus, it would be more like
-17° Centigrade, if there were no greenhouse gases in the atmosphere
and, therefore, no greenhouse effect.

This page will give you a rough idea of physical and chemical data related
to greenhouse effects. See also planetary heat circulation.

This section is developing in response to the desperate attempts of the

fossil fuel industry, various amateurs and conspiracy theorists who wish to
rubbish the growing consensus on the anthropogenic global warming
effect. Much of this page is in response to the almost surreal claims that
carbon dioxide is, somehow, not a major part of the problem. It is my,
perhaps vain, hope that by the end of this page, any such nonsense will be
taken less seriously. Things are moving very quickly, as vast amounts of
data is being collected year by year.

In the next section, pay close attention to the dates of the three items
quoted.
so where are we right now (march 2007)

“On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific
method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but - which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the
ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but
human beings as well. And like most people we'd like to see the world a
better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce
the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to
get some broadbased support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of
course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up
scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little
mention of any doubts we might have. This 'double ethical bind' we
frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us
has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being
honest. I hope that means being both.” [Steven Schneider in Discover, pp.
45-48, Oct. 1989]

“[...] I readily confess a lingering frustration: uncertainties so infuse the

issue of climate change that it is still impossible to rule out either mild or
catastrophic outcomes, let alone provide confident probabilities for all the
claims and counterclaims made about environmental problems.” [Steven
Schneider in January 2002 Scientific American]

“[...] The way the SPM [Summary for Policy Makers] works is that the
scientists write a report, and then are put together in a room with
representatives of the world’s governments, and between them they
agree a text that has full support, the idea being that there is nothing left
that can be contested: that the SPM has the full support of all the relevant
scientists and their governments. Since the governments in question
include the administrations of George W. Bush, King Abdullah, John
Howard and Hu Jintao, this is not a straightforward process; in fact there is
something heroic about the firm stand the SPM manages to take. The
price for this is that the SPM makes no policy recommendations of any
kind, a fact which has drawn some negative comment; but the consensus
on the basic facts is so remarkable that we can live without the
unenforceable policy advice.

“The first crucial component of the scientific consensus concerns a figure

called the ‘climate sensitivity’. This is the amount by which the climate will
grow warmer if the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere doubles. It is not a
straightforward figure to calculate because many of the values change as
the temperature changes; water vapour, for instance, is an important
greenhouse gas, and as the oceans warm, water vapour in the
atmosphere increases both in amount and in its greenhouse properties.
Arrhenius thought that it would take three thousand years for our
activities to double the level of CO2, which in 1750, before the Industrial
Revolution, was about 280 parts per million (ppm). By now the level is
379ppm and rising sharply. As the Chinese and Indian economies take off
and global levels of CO2 begin to rise even more quickly, it seems a racing
certainty that we will achieve that level of doubled emissions some time
this century; at which point the ‘climate sensitivity’ will become the most
important number in the world. So the fact that according to the IPCC ‘an
assessed likely range’ for climate sensitivity can now be given ‘for the first
time’ is of more than academic interest. That figure is likely - between 66
and 90 per cent probable - to be between 2 and 4.5ºC. The best estimate
is for climate sensitivity to be 3ºC. ‘Values substantially higher than 4.5ºC
cannot be excluded.” [John Lanchester, from lrb.co.uk, March 2007]

isotopes and global warming

All this global warming stuff gets complicated. You may hear all the
amazing claims and be inclined to ask, “How do they know that?”

A lot of the advances and discoveries are made by a careful analysis of

isotopes. Isotopes are versions of chemical elements which have slightly
different atomic weights, from having different numbers of neutrons. The
isotopes that vary from the basic element are, in general, more rare than
the basic isotope.

Most of the carbon in the world has six neutrons, and six protons, which
gives carbon an atomic weight of 12.

But there are also carbon atoms out there with seven or with eight
neutrons, which are known as carbon 13 (13C) and carbon 14 ( 14C) .

Now, the ratio for the different quantities of these various carbon isotopes
in the air are known and can be measured with great accuracy. The ratios
vary according to circumstances.

Plants prefer to use 12C, rather than 13C, for photosynthesis. They take in
both 12C and 13C version of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the inhaled air.
During respiration, plants exhale the unused carbon dioxide. Because the
plant has used 12C carbon dioxide preferentially to 13C carbon dioxide for
photosynthesis, the percentage of carbon dioxide that is 13C carbon
dioxide is higher in the exhaled air than in the inhaled air. Thus, scientists
talk of the exhaled air being 12C depleted.

Also, with carbon, the rare isotope 14C is not found in the carbon-rich fossil
fuel deposits of coal and oil. 14C is radioactive, with a half-life of 5,730
years. It has had millions of years during its sojourn underground to decay
into the more common forms.

Thus from ratios like this (the ratio of 12C carbon dioxide to 14C carbon
dioxide) the amount of carbon in the air from anthropogenic sources can
be estimated. And the scientists are not just guessing, believe it or not.
The table below shows some isotopes, together with some of the uses to
which they are put.

As you will see, there are several naturally occuring isotopes of both
carbon and oxygen. Thus, you will immediately guess that there are
various possibilities for the composition of carbon dioxide (CO2). There are
six relevant permutations for this discussion (3 carbon isotopes times 2
oxygen isotopes). The other isotopes of these elements are not relevant to
this discussion.

oxygen in ice and oxygen in water: dating methods

"Much of what we know about Cenozoic ice ages comes from the offshore
record, where continuous sequences of sediment are preserved. Scientists
in the early 1970s discovered that the deep-sea sedimentary record,
recoverable by drilling ships, could be used to reconstruct
glacial/interglacial climates. In order to determine the pattern of climate
change, a technique known as oxygen isotope analysis was developed.
This technique involves determining the ratio between the two varieties of
oxygen, the light isotope 16O and the heavy isotope 18O. As ocean water
evaporates, preferentially more 16O is released, but in non-glacial times is
returned almost immediately to the ocean as runoff from the land. In
glacial times this excess 16O is stored in ice masses, leading to enrichment
of 18O in the oceans. Marine sediment containing microfossils called
foraminifer, reflects the composition of seawater. As the sediment
accumulates on the sea bed, a continuous record of oxygen isotopic
variations is produced, with the highest values of 18O occuring during
interglacial periods.” [2]

Oxygen take-up, that is oxygen trapped in ice or incorporated in shells, is

used for detecting two different things - an assessment of the amount of
water tied up in the ice sheets, and the current ambient temperature. This
take-up is recorded in the shell formation of foraminifer microfossils in
oceanic sediments. However, these two causes can be confused. My
reading suggests that both will act in the same direction and the causes
may be separated, but as yet I am unconvinced that this is so.

The major method of finding the age of sea sediment cores is magnetism.
The Earth’s magnetic field switches direction from time to time, and
therefore the magnetic alignment of different times represented is in the
core and indicates when that part of the core was laid down. Magnetism is
also used for distant core samples to locate their original position on the
globe, as the angle between position and the pole varies with latitude.
Obviously, these two usages can be confused.

The changing ratio of 14C to 12C, as we burn fossil fuels, allows a calculation
of how much anthropogenic (fossil) carbon is in the air.

As 16O is preferentially evaporated relative to 18O, an assessment can be

made from ice core and microfossil analysis as to the amount of water tied
up in ice at any one time.

There are several other isotopes of both oxygen and of carbon, but they
are only usually available through laboratory fabrication.

Hydrogen isotopes are used in ice core analysis, but I don’t know what for
yet!

mercury and venus

The average temperature of Venus is much higher than that of Mercury,

even though Venus is nearly twice as far from the sun as Mercury!

“[...] a young American physicist called James Hansen, whose 1967 PhD
thesis studied Venus and came to the conclusion that it was the
greenhouse effect which made the planet so warm – 400ºC on the surface,
hot enough to melt lead. A probe later the same year showed that the
atmosphere of Venus was in fact 96 per cent carbon dioxide [...] ” [Quoted
from lrb.co.uk]

average
average
average real temperature
solar temperature
planet distance average without
constan without
name to sun temperatur atmosphere,
t (W/m2) atmosphere
(AU) e (oC) and with zero
(oC)
albedo (oC)
Mercur
0.387 9147 167 173 167
y
Venus 0.723 2620 464 55 unknown
Earth 1 1370 16 5 -17
Mars 1.524 590 -63 -47 -58

An Astronomical Unit (AU) is defined as the average distance from the Sun
to the Earth. It is approximately 150 million kilometres, or a bit over 8 light
minutes.

The Solar Constant is different for each point in space. It is the amount of
energy from the Sun that reaches that particular place. It can be
calculated very easily from this simple formula:

S.C.x = S.C.earth/r2

Where S.C.x is the solar constant at point x, and r is the distance from the
Sun to x (in AU). This formula is an example of an inverse square law - the
closer you get to the Sun, the more of a difference going a little bit closer
will make. Thus, while the difference in the distance from the Sun to
Mercury and from the Sun to Venus is approximately the same as the
difference in the distance from Sun to Venus and from the Sun to the
Earth, the amount of energy drops to less than a third between Mercury
and Venus, but only drops to about half between Venus and the Earth.

The average temperatures without atmosphere and albedo assume that

each planet is black. A black planet has an albedo of 0, which means that
it absorbs everything and reflects nothing. However, planets are not black!
The Earth, for example, has an average albedo of around 0.3. This means
that 30% of the incoming energy from the sun is reflected straight back.
Thus, a more realistic figure for the average temperature of the Earth
without an atmosphere would be -17oC, rather than +5oC.

Nobody knows the albedo of Venus, because the atmosphere is so thick

that nobody can see the surface. In all likelihood, however, Venus’ surface
is not black, so the average temperature of Venus without an atmosphere
would be significantly lower than 55oC.

The Chemistry of Global Warming

A greenhouse may be great for growing tomatoes, but it’s not the kind of
climate that would work for the whole planet. Unfortunately, the earth’s
atmosphere is becoming more and more like a greenhouse — it allows
sunlight in, but gases in the atmosphere, especially carbon dioxide (CO2),
allow less of the generated heat from escaping.

Each year, more than 100 billion tons of CO2 are absorbed by green plants
on land and in the sea during photosynthesis, thus producing oxygen for
humans and other organisms to breathe. Respiration by these organisms
returns this carbon to the atmosphere as CO2. Unfortunately, the world
emits an additional 7 billion tons of CO2 annually because of burning fossil
fuels like coal, gas, and oil, and a reduction in plant life via deforestation.

As a greenhouse gas, this surplus of CO2 affects our air, oceans, and
climate. It only takes temperature increases of a few degrees to
significantly impact rainfall (affecting both flooding and droughts), wildlife
feeding patterns, and environmental suitability for regional plant life. Not
surprisingly, Rosenstiel School scientists are studying CO2, organic carbon,
and other chemicals that contribute to global warming in a variety of
studies.

Down the drain

Because oceans absorb about 50% of the CO2 mankind produces each
year, they serve as natural “sinks” to remove the gas from the air. Without
the oceans, the rate of climate change could be twice as great as it is now.
Rosenstiel School researchers travel the world sampling the ocean waters
to inventory CO2 levels and track changes over time. These scientists are
able to report on the changes in the global flux of CO2 across this air-sea
interface with time and provide valuable information about the oceanic
uptake of this important greenhouse gas and the increased acidity of the
oceans.

Air to sea exchange

Since 2001, Rosenstiel School researchers have used unique ASIS buoys to
improve their understanding of the physical mechanisms that govern how
CO2 is transferred between the atmosphere and ocean. Using carefully
planned experiments in the field and laboratory, the scientists hope their
work will eventually allow for satellite-acquired global measurements that
improve our estimates of how much CO2 the ocean absorbs, how much
remains in the atmosphere, and their correlation to climate change.

The balancing act

In addition to the ocean absorbing CO2, it also contains dissolved organic

carbon, nitrogen, and trace metals like iron that play a significant role in
how plants and animals thrive there. The CO2 entering the ocean can be
fixed into plant bodies as organic carbon by photosynthesis, which in turn
is available to support growth by marine animals and bacteria. Time series
studies and spatial surveys in specific geographic areas of interest, such
as the Sargasso Sea, the Arctic Ocean, the Antarctic Polar Front, and the
Indian Ocean, are key to understanding these phenomena better.
Rosenstiel chemists cross the globe to study the ocean’s biochemistry,
focusing on the dynamics of carbon and nitrogen.

Improving tracking

The Rosenstiel School is also home to a scientist who uses other naturally
occurring chemicals to better understand ocean/climate relationships. Her
team works to answer fundamental questions about the role of the oceans
in climate change (i.e., how fast the oceans take up atmospheric
constituents, such as CO2). To get rates of processes, they use trace
chemicals in the ocean with time scale information, including
chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). Though CFCs have been blamed for
atmospheric degradation, in the oceans they are harmless and serve as
excellent indicators of ocean interaction with the atmosphere.

Beyond chemistry

When they’re not accompanying phytoplankton and zooplankton

researchers to the Arctic to size up environmental changes, our chemists
are collaborating with international colleagues to report their joint
findings. Field work is a crucial element to this large cadre of Rosenstiel
School scientists who work to solve today’s most challenging puzzle:
climate change and its impact on the Earth and its inhabitants.

Carbon Dioxide &

Global Warming

How Do Humans Contribute to Greenhouse Gas Emissions and

Global Warming?

By Larry West, About.com Guide

See More About:

• global warming and human activity

• greenhouse gas emissions
• population growth
• industrial revolution
• deforestation

Question: How Do Humans Contribute to Greenhouse Gas Emissions and

Global Warming?
Answer: Throughout most of human history, and certainly before human
beings emerged as a dominant species throughout the world, all climate
changes were the direct result of natural forces.

Industrial Age Accelerates Global Warming

That changed with the start of the Industrial Revolution, when new
agricultural and industrial practices began to alter the global climate and
environment. Before that time, human activity didn’t release many
greenhouse gases, but population growth, deforestation, factory farming,
and the widespread use of fossil fuels are creating an excess of
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and contributing to global warming.
Science Links Global Warming to Human Activity
In February 2007, a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC), representing the work of 2,500 scientists from more than
130 countries, stated that human activity "very likely" has been the
primary cause of global warming since 1950. (In science, nothing is ever
claimed to be "certain" or absolute, which leaves open the possibility of
further research and discovery, but the term “very likely” indicates more
than 90 percent certainty and is considered virtual confirmation.)

The IPCC report also said that human activity has been a major contributor
to climate change since the start of the Industrial in the mid-1700s.