PROJECT PROPOSAL

Background:

Perhaps the most widely debated and arguably the most relevant topic of the 21 st Century is

Global Warming and Climatic change. While the scientists may argue on the scale and order of

the chaos, it is by far an uncontested reality that our world is heating up and the consequences

are scary. Scientific consensus on global warming is that the average temperature of the Earth

has risen between 0.4 and 0.8 °C over the past 100 years. The increased volumes of carbon

dioxide (CO2 and other greenhouse gases released by the burning of fossil fuels, land clearing,

agriculture, and other human activities, are believed to be the primary sources of the global

warming that has occurred over the past 50 years. Scientists have recently predicted that average

global temperatures could increase between 1.4 and 5.8 °C by the year 2100. The effects of

global warming are far-reaching, steadily intensifying, and encompass everything from extreme

weather to sea level rise, heat waves to air pollution, wildfires to melting ice.

Motivation:

Now, it is established beyond doubt that we have serious reasons to worry and as a responsible

global citizen I do. The fact that all of us, in some form, including the larger planet and its eco

system are under threat, it justifies my effort to examine the correlation between greenhouse

emission and the rising global temperature and do the forecasting. While such exercise may be

commercially attractive for many environmental consulting firms, personally I feel rewarded as

long as it serves the greater objective of environmental awareness.

Scientists have been able to measure the CO2 emission from fossil fuels and cement productions

and have also recorded the variation of global mean temperatures (Land and Ocean combined).

They present the variation in world mean temperature with respect to a benchmark temperature

of 14C [Mean global temperature in 1951-1980] and express the CO2 emission in Million Metric

Tons of Carbon. Here is an attempt to look at the time series of both “CO2 emission” and “Mean

Global Temperature (absolute)” and decipher the role of this greenhouse gas in global warming.

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Data Source:

(i) Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, US

Department of Energy and (ii) NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies . The Carbon Dioxide

Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) is the primary climate-change data and information

analysis center of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). CDIAC is located at DOE's Oak Ridge

National Laboratory (ORNL) and includes the ‘World Data Center for Atmospheric Trace

Gases’. CDIAC's data holdings include estimates of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil-fuel

consumption and land-use changes; records of atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and

other radiatively active trace gases; carbon cycle and terrestrial carbon management datasets and

analyses; and global/regional climate data and time series

Details of Time Series Data

Two time series (i) Total CO2 emission from Fossil Fuel and Cement Production ( Million Tons

of Carbon) and (ii) Actual Global Temp(C) will be examined from year 1880 to 2010 (131

observations each). Each time series is annual data and does not display any seasonality. Hence

no seasonal adjustment was necessary.

Methodology

I desire to estimate and forecast the Global Mean Temperature (Main time series) using the

assisting variable (Total CO2 emission).The data from 1880 to 2000 (121 observations) will be

used to estimate the model and the last 10 observations will be used to compare the forecast

accuracy.

Attachments:

Annexure I: Time series Data sets for (i) Total CO2 emission and (ii) Actual Global Temp(C)

Annexure II: Raw Data of ‘Total CO2 emission’ as per report of (CDIAC)

Annexure III: Raw Data of ‘Actual Global Temp(C’) as per report of (CDIAC)

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