Global Warming

How much of the global warming is caused by Natural climate change and by human activities?

What is the sensitivity of Earth’s climate to the increases of greenhouse gases (CO2 and CH4) and sulfur dioxide (SO2)?

What is the projection of the future climate change?

Human Acticities

The initial appearance of human species: last 100,000 to 200,000 years

Development of the first civilization: the last 10,000 years

The arrival and growth of the industrial era: the last few hundreds years

Global Warming: Natural or Man-Made

Global surface temperature has warmed by 0.6°C in the last century.

Is the global warming caused by natural climate change or by human activities?

Natural Climate Changes

Observed warming

      0.6°C in the last 100 years.

Tectonic Scale

      Cooling by 0.00002°C within 100 years

Orbital Scale

      Cooling by 0.02°C within 100 years

Millennial Scale

      Uncertain, but probably on the order of 0.02°C (such as the net cooling into the Little Ice Age)

Solar Activities

      May cause 0.2°C warming

Global Warming: Is it Man-mad?

Global Warming Due to 2xCO₂

Estimated by computer models:

      (1) Direct Greenhouse effect: warms up global surface temperature by 1.25°C

      (2) Water vapor feedback produces another 2.5°C warming

      (3) Snow-Albedo feedback produces another 0.6°C warming

     (4) Cloud feedback is uncertain.

Clouds – A Major Uncertainty

How do all types of clouds (high and low clouds) respond to global warming?

Possibility 1: more clouds during global warming

Global warming

More water vapor available to form clouds

More clouds

Possibility 2: less clouds during global warming

Global warming

A warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor

Reduce the condensation of water vapors to clouds

Less clouds

Cooling Effects of SO2

SO2 produced by smokestacks exceeds natural emissions.

SO2 reacts with water vapor to produce sulfate aerosols.

Sulfate aerosols can block solar radiation and cool the climate.

Sources of SO2 Emissions

SO2 Cooling and CO2 Warming

The warming effect of greenhouse gases may be partly cancelled by the cooling effect of sulfates produced by SO2 emission from smokestacks.

Future CO2 Change

Atmospheric CO2 will increase within two centuries to levels at least two and possibly four times higher than those that existed before humans made their influence felt.

How Future CO2 Emission Calculated?

Global Population: is expected to increase to 11 billion between 2075 and 2100 (100% increase).

Emission Per Person: is linked to averaged standard of living (such as car and home heating or cooling).

Efficiency of Use: The hardest factor to project. The efficiency depends on technologies. This is also the factor that may keep carbon emissions from increasing in the future.

Projected Carbon Emissions

Projected CO2 Concentration

Projecting the future CO2 concentration is more difficult than projecting the emission levels.

The future concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere also depends on how the climate system redistribute the excessive CO2 among its carbon reservoirs (such as ocean and biosphere).

CO2 level in the atmosphere peaks centuries after CO2 emission reaches its peak.

This is related to the fact that it take time for ocean to remove the excessive CO2 from the atmosphere.

Projected Temperature Changes

CO2: Past and Future

CO2 levels were last at the 2xCO2 value near 7 Myr ago.

CO2 levels were last at the 4xCO2 value at least before 50 Myr ago and possible since the Cretaceous greenhouse world of 100 Myr ago.

Temperature: Past and Future

CO2 emission resulting from human activities in the next few hundred years will cause global temperature changes that took natural forces tens of millions of years to produce.

A 2xCO2 World (50-100 years from now)

The 2xCo2 world likely to exit by the year 2100 will in many ways be similar to the world exited 5 to 10 million year ago, with less sea ice and permafrost in polar regions, few mountain glacier, and in some regions greener deserts.

A 4xCO2 World (50-100 years from now)

The 4xCo2 world that may come into existence between 2200 and 2300 would be slowly moving toward condition that exist 50 or more million years ago, when little or no glacial or sea ice was present on Earth, and forests grew in the higher latitudes of the Arctic.


	How much of the global warming is caused by Natural climate change and by human activities?
	What is the sensitivity of Earth’s climate to the increases of greenhouse gases (CO2 and CH4) and sulfur dioxide (SO2)?
	What is the projection of the future climate change?


	The initial appearance of human species: last 100,000 to 200,000 years
	Development of the first civilization: the last 10,000 years
	The arrival and growth of the industrial era: the last few hundreds years


	Global surface temperature has warmed by 0.6°C in the last century.
	Is the global warming caused by natural climate change or by human activities?


	Observed warming
	0.6°C in the last 100 years.
	Tectonic Scale
	Cooling by 0.00002°C within 100 years
	Orbital Scale
	Cooling by 0.02°C within 100 years
	Millennial Scale
	Uncertain, but probably on the order of 0.02°C (such as the net cooling into the Little Ice Age)
	Solar Activities
	May cause 0.2°C warming


	Estimated by computer models:
	(1) Direct Greenhouse effect: warms up global surface temperature by 1.25°C
	(2) Water vapor feedback produces another 2.5°C warming
	(3) Snow-Albedo feedback produces another 0.6°C warming
	(4) Cloud feedback is uncertain.


	How do all types of clouds (high and low clouds) respond to global warming?
	Possibility 1: more clouds during global warming
	Global warming
	More water vapor available to form clouds
	More clouds

	Possibility 2: less clouds during global warming
	Global warming
	A warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor
	Reduce the condensation of water vapors to clouds
	Less clouds


	SO2 produced by smokestacks exceeds natural emissions.
	SO2 reacts with water vapor to produce sulfate aerosols.
	Sulfate aerosols can block solar radiation and cool the climate.


	The warming effect of greenhouse gases may be partly cancelled by the cooling effect of sulfates produced by SO2 emission from smokestacks.


	Atmospheric CO2 will increase within two centuries to levels at least two and possibly four times higher than those that existed before humans made their influence felt.


	Global Population: is expected to increase to 11 billion between 2075 and 2100 (100% increase).
	Emission Per Person: is linked to averaged standard of living (such as car and home heating or cooling).
	Efficiency of Use: The hardest factor to project. The efficiency depends on technologies. This is also the factor that may keep carbon emissions from increasing in the future.


	Projecting the future CO2 concentration is more difficult than projecting the emission levels.
	The future concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere also depends on how the climate system redistribute the excessive CO2 among its carbon reservoirs (such as ocean and biosphere).
	CO2 level in the atmosphere peaks centuries after CO2 emission reaches its peak.
	This is related to the fact that it take time for ocean to remove the excessive CO2 from the atmosphere.


	CO2 levels were last at the 2xCO2 value near 7 Myr ago.
	CO2 levels were last at the 4xCO2 value at least before 50 Myr ago and possible since the Cretaceous greenhouse world of 100 Myr ago.


	CO2 emission resulting from human activities in the next few hundred years will cause global temperature changes that took natural forces tens of millions of years to produce.


	The 2xCo2 world likely to exit by the year 2100 will in many ways be similar to the world exited 5 to 10 million year ago, with less sea ice and permafrost in polar regions, few mountain glacier, and in some regions greener deserts.


	The 4xCo2 world that may come into existence between 2200 and 2300 would be slowly moving toward condition that exist 50 or more million years ago, when little or no glacial or sea ice was present on Earth, and forests grew in the higher latitudes of the Arctic.