Instructor: Prof. Zhanqing Li (zli@atmos.umd.edu)

Room 4013, M-Square Bldg off River Rd.

http://atmos.umd.edu/~zliCourse Assistant: Maureen Cribb (mcribb@essic.umd.edu)

Guest Lecturers:

Dr. Warren Wiscombe, NASA/GSFC

(Global Warming and Paleoclimate)

Dr. Russ Dickerson, AOSC

(Air Pollution)

Dr. Sinead Farrell, NOAA/NASA/ESSIC

(Cryosphere and Sea Level Change)

AOSC401, Spring 2014

Climate Dynamics and Earth System Science

Calendar• First Class January 28

• Mid-Term Exam March 13 (Thursday)

• Spring Break March 17-21

• Project Week of April 14

• Last Class Day May 8

• Final Exam TBD

Textbooks (Mixed use)

Title: Understanding Weather & Climate, 4th ed Authors: E. Aguado and J.E. Burt Publisher: Pearson EducationISBN: 0-13-149696-4

Title: The Earth SystemAuthors: Lee R. Kump, J. F. Kasting, R.G. CranePublisher: Prentice-Hull Inc.ISBN: 0-13-177387

Title: Global Physical Climatology Authors: Dennis L. Hartmann, Publisher: Academic Press, 1994, ISBN: 0-12-328530-5

Reference book

Title: IPCC: Climate Change 2013: The Scientific Basis

Authors: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: Working Group I Availability:

Freely downloadable fromhttp://www.climatechange2013.org/report/review-drafts/

Absence Policy

Students should notify the instructor prior to absences via emails for explaining the circumstance for the absence with supporting documents.

Students are asked to sign the attendance sheet to record their attendance of each class. Those who have 100% attendance will get a credit of 10 towards the final grade. One absence without priori approval will get a 1% deduction

Only those in-advance excused absences due to the serious illness or other emergence situations will not be counted as “absence” if written and verifiable documents are provided.

Only the arrival within 5min of course start is counted.

Grading

• Class participation 10%

• Homework (~4 sets) 20%

• Two class quizzes 20%

• Mid-term Exam (75 min) 20%

• Final 30%

Quiz/exam Policy

There will be no makeup quizzes or exams except in case of serious illness. You must be excused in advance by

phone or email to have a makeup quiz/exam with doctor’s letter.

Other than pocket-size calculators, usage of all electronic devices including cell phones is NOT allowed during

quizzes and exams. If found, the score for the quiz or exam will automatically be ZERO.

My Expectation

• Keep good attendance record• Ask questions during/after classes.

• Be motivated and make efforts.• Study the book and lecture notes

• Prepare for quizzes • Complete homework in time.

• Remember some important facts.• Understand fundamental physical principles.

• Understand the functioning of the Earth’s climate and system

• Understanding the causes and consequence of climate changes

My Commitments

• Be ready to answer questions.• Work with anyone who needs additional help.

• Walk-in during office hours.• Stay in the classroom a while after classes

• Motivate, challenge, and encourage each student.• Return your quizzes and homework within one week

• Review any difficult problems, if needed.• Review the materials before the final exam.• Take your suggestions seriously. Don’t be shy!

Scope and Description of the Course This is an introductory course on the climate and the earth system. Emphasis is on scientific understanding on the principle climate elements and processes, the spatial and temporal variability of the Earth’s climate and the climate changes. Topics include the global weather and climate system; climate change; earth’s radiation budget; clouds and aerosols; energy balance, the hydrologic cycle, and general circulation of the atmosphere and oceans; the natural variability of the atmosphere-ocean-biosphere; carbon cycle and biogeochemistry, atmosphere-ocean coupling and ENSO variability; potential human effects: greenhouse effects, deforestation, acid rain, ozone depletion, nuclear winter. Social, political and economic aspects of changes in global environment.

Course Outline

Theme 1: Course Outline and Introduction Theme 2: Earth ObservationTheme 3: Radiation and ClimateTheme 4: Greenhouse Effect & Carbon CycleTheme 5: Global WarmingTheme 6: Cloud and climateTheme 7: Aerosol and Climate

Course Outline

Theme 8: Air pollution Theme 9: Ozone Depletion and Ultraviolet RadiationTheme 10: Land Cover, Vegetation and Terrestrial SystemTheme 11: Biomass Burning, deforestation and VolcanoTheme 12: Ocean and climateTheme 13: Cryosphere and Climate Theme 14: Sea-level ChangeTheme 15: Climate change frontier

•By the term Climate we refer to the average weather conditions and their ranges expected at some location or region and time of the year. This includes the mean values of variables such as the temperature, precipitation, humidity, cloudiness, pressure, wind, visibility, and air quality and their extremes.

•The climate state is determined collectively by local thermodynamic heating/cooling and energy transported by motions.

What is Climate?

Weather and Climate

The actual minimum and maximum temperatures (in degrees Fahrenheit) measured in New York City (La

Guardia Airport) in January 2005, as well as the climatological daily temperature range for January.

La Guardia Max and Min Temp.

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Normal Min

Climate VariabilityClimate is also concerned with

itsvariability, for example – the standard deviation of temperature.

•Climate is determined by the complex response of several physical components of the Earth System to the energy entailed in solar radiation.

•The components that make up the Climate System are: the atmosphere, the land surface (its morphology and cover), the oceans, the cryosphere (ice cover of land & ocean), and the biosphere.

•The Earth is an unique member of the Solar System in its ability to sustain life. The climate system plays a major role by affecting such factors as the range of temperatures and moisture availability.

•Climate has been continually changing due to external influences and internal interactions.

Climate and Earth System

The Climate System

Climate dynamics deals with the changes of climate state variables which are determined by the energy flow from one component to other components of the climate system: Energy cycle. The energy cycle may also involve matter exchange (e.g., hydrological cycle, Carbon cycle, etc).

The Climate Dynamics

The Earth’s surface is kept warm

through one source: the Sun. It is the

primary source for Earth’s energy.

Some of the incoming sunlight and

heat energy is reflected back into

space by the Earth’s surface, gases in

the atmosphere, and clouds; some of

it is absorbed and stored as heat.

When the surface and atmosphere

warm, they emit heat, or thermal

energy, into space. The “radiation

budget” is an accounting of these

energy flows. If the radiation budget

is in balance, then Earth should be

neither warming nor cooling, on

average.

Clouds, atmospheric water vapor and

aerosol particles play important roles

in determining global climate through

their absorption, reflection, and

emission of solar and thermal energy.

Earth’s Radiation ComponentsEarth’s Radiation Components

Global Warming

• Why is global warming is important?

There appears to be an accelerating pace of change that could be linked to human activities.

• Why is global warming controversial?

It is so complex that we cannot easily separate anthropogenic changes caused by industrial and agricultural activities from natural variability.

Major Human Contribution to Climate Change or Global Warming

• Land Cover Change: Human’s significant influence on earth started about 10000 years ago due to agriculture activities

• Greenhouse Effect refers to the atmospheric effect of trapping some infrared radiation from leaving the planet relative to that without the atmosphere. It is not the same as the real “greenhouse”. The greenhouse effect of the planet earth is about 15oC, in comparison to 460oC for Venus. Only a small fraction of GH effect is induced by human by adding the so called “trace gases” which include CO2, CH4, N2O, CFCs. None-CO2 trace gases contribute as much global warming as that by CO2 in the past decade.

• Burning of Fossil Fuels: coal, oil and natural gases, composed from fossilized remains of organisms.

“Keeling Curve”

Trends of Temperature Change over Two Trends of Temperature Change over Two PeriodsPeriods

（单位：℃/10

年）

1951-20081961-1990

This yearly average plot includes a trend line and shows the uneven downward trend in the Arctic sea ice

extents over this time period. The trend line has a downward slope of 34,300 square kilometers (13,200 square

miles) per year. This suggests a loss of ice extent each year roughly equal to the combined areas of Maryland

and Delaware. The values used in these plots were derived from data from the Scanning Multichannel

Microwave Radiometer (SMMR) on board NASA’s Nimbus 7 satellite and from the Special Sensor Microwave

Imagers (SSMIs) on satellites of the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program.

Plot credits: Claire L. Parkinson, Donald J. Cavalieri, Per Gloersen, H. Jay Zwally, and Josefino C. Comiso, NASA/GSFC. The plots first appeared in an article by these scientists in the Journal of Geophysical Research in 1999.

Northern Hemisphere Sea Ice ExtentNorthern Hemisphere Sea Ice Extent

Stratospheric ozone protects all life forms

from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet

radiation. These images from the Total

Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS)

show the progressive depletion of

stratospheric ozone over Antarctica from

1983 to 1997. High concentrations of

ozone are shown in red, low

concentrations in blue.

The Antarctic ozone hole develops each

year between late August and early

October. By September, 1998 it had

grown to cover 10.5 million square miles.

Scientists hope to see a reduction in

ozone loss as emissions of ozone-

destroying CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons)

are reduced.

Image credit: Greg Shirah, NASA/GSFC Scientific Visualization Studio

Ozone DepletionOzone Depletion

September 1993 September 1997

September 1983 September 1987Q ui ckTi me™ and aPhoto - J PEG decompressorare needed to see thi s pi cture.

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Dobson Units

Deforestration

• Commercial Logging• Agriculture• Roads & Railways• Forest fires• Mining and drilling• Fuel-wood collection• Residential living• space

Things to Worry

• Amazon rain forest will be gone in 50-100 years

• Amazon river basin is home to hundreds of thousands of plant species

• Not just local but global– Convective and circulatory processes effected

Land Cover and Land Use Change: Deforestation

Pre- Deforestation Landsat image of Bolivian deforestation

Deforestation Croplands cleared by Government run-national farms

1975 1996

National Geographic, 1999

A Landsat image (above, left) taken in 1972 and an ASTER image (above, right) taken in 2000 of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia dramatize evidence of an increasing human population. Population increases around the world have caused all sorts of problems, such as air pollution, traffic jams, overextended water resources, overfilled garbage dumps, and the destruction of natural wildlife habitats. Landsat and ASTER images provide important long-term records of urban growth, and can help us make decisions about the most effective use of space and resources for the future.

Landsat image credit: U.S. Geological Survey EROS Data Center and Landsat 7 Science Team

ASTER image credit: NASA/GSFC, METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team

A City in the DesertA City in the Desert

1972 2000

GROWTH IN INSTALLED CAPACITY IN ASIA1993-2010

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Others

Geothermal

Nuclear

Hydro

Coal

Gas

Oil

Source: Pacific Energy Outlook, Strategies and Policy Imperatives to 2010

Gigawatts

Air pollution: an emerging environmental issue in Asia

RegionalResourceCentre forAsia and the Pacific

Air Pollution: An Increasing Problem!Air Pollution: An Increasing Problem!Mt. Everest

Phaplu, Nepal, March 25, 2001

SULFUR DIOXIDE EMISSIONS BY REGION

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Years

million tons/year

Europe USA Asia

Carbon monoxide (CO) is a colorless, odorless, toxic gas. CO reduces the oxygen-carrying capacity of blood in the

body and in day-to-day life can impair mental abilities, especially for those with heart and respiratory conditions.

Its production is a direct result of combustion caused predominantly by industrial processes and biomass burning.

Carbon monoxide levels have been increasing in the atmosphere. In this global image of carbon monoxide from

March 13-15, 2000, lavender indicates high CO values and blues indicate low values. The high concentrations of CO

in west central Africa are largely due to widespread biomass burning.

Image credit: Scientific Visualization Studio, NASA/GSFC, using data from the MOPITT Science Team

Carbon MonoxideCarbon Monoxide

RegionalResourceCentre forAsia and the Pacific

Impact: on Human HealthImpact: on Human Health

ASTHMA ON THE RISE• Respiratory ailments such as asthma

increased to 30 % from 9% in 1979 among the < 18 age group in Bangalore, India. 0

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SO2 can increase Asthma by tenfold

NOx can increase asthma by 60%

O3 can increase asthma by 43%

PM can increase asthma by 32%

Estimated health cost due to air pollutionIn India = $18-86 billion; in 36 Indian cities = $517-2102 million

Premature deaths due to air pollution In India = 2.5 million; in 36 Indian cities= 40,000

Source: Down To Earth and SoE India 2001

RegionalResourceCentre forAsia and the Pacific

PollutedPristine

Highly polluted

Water budget: Water budget: Flood & DroughtFlood & Drought

Drought

Heavy rain

500 million people

900 million people

The Ocean & Global Climate

• The Ocean regulates Earth’s climate

• Dominates the hydrological cycle

The Open University, 1989

The Hydrological Cycle (quantities shown are X 10 15 kg)

Oceanic Climatic VariabilityEl Niño

• El Niño: occurs approximately every 2-10 years.

• Results in warming of the ocean waters across eastern and central Pacific Ocean causing changes in global weather patterns.

• During the peak of the 1997-98 El Niño, when warmer sea surface temperatures (red) were as much as 5°C (9°F) above normal and sea surface heights were as much as 35 centimeters (14 inches) above normal.

Normal Conditions: January 97 El Niño Conditions: November 97

NOAA, 1999

Mount Pinatubo

• Ash cloud covered 50,000 square miles• Plume was over 12 miles tall• Eruption was ten times larger than Mount St. Helens in 1980• Typhoon Yunya may have made matters worse by adding rain to the mix• Ash fell as far as Vietnam

Image credit: http://www.ucar.edu/communications/staffnotes/0604/images/pi

natubo.jpg

Sulfur Dioxide Emissions fromMount Pinatubo

Sulfur dioxide emissions day of Mount Pinatubo’s

eruption.

Sulfur dioxide emissions two weeks after

eruption.Sulfur dioxide emissions one day after eruption.

Image credit: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a002100/a002181/nodate_so2pinatubo.0154_web.jpg