www.met.sjsu.edu/~jin

METR 112 Global Climate Change

Professor Menglin Susan JinSan Jose State University, Dept of Meteorology and Climate Science

January 22, 2014

Outline of today’s lecture

1. Introduction and Welcome2. Discussion on the “greensheet”3. Learning Contract4. First glance on observations of Changing Climate

For greensheet, class ppt notes

http://www.met.sjsu.edu/~jin/METR112spring2014.htm

NOT any other websites!

About Professor

1.

2. an effective teacher

3. Teaching philosophy: teaching is your responsibility, but a good professor makes things so easy for you

A very good scholar www.met.sjsu.edu/~jin

Research projects: funded by NASA, NSF, Department of DefenseOn land surface climate change, urbanization, remote sensing

20+ leading author papers on top journals

GoalMETR112 will help you to know the fundamentals of

global climate system, climate change,

and gain appreciation of the complexities involved with climate change issues

Being educated in Climate Change Issue

Homework: 20%Midterm Exam: 20%

Class Participation 5%Group Project: 20%

Final Exam: 35%Scale: 90+ A, 80’s B, 70’s C, 60’s D, <60 F

Homework will be assigned on in class Submitted on time via canvas.

Content

1. Knowledge on Climate System:Atmosphere StructureLand Surface PropertiesLand-Ocean-Atmosphere InteractionGlobal Energy BalanceGlobal Hydrological CycleC cycleGlacierAerosols and cloudsOzone

2. Past Climate Change3. Recent Climate Change4. Climate Modeling – Its basics and Uncertainty5. Climate Feedback6. Urban Climate Change – Land Cover Change and Human

Impacts7. Climate Change and Human Health8. Remaining Questions on Global Climate Change Research9. 10 Things You can do to Fight Climate Change

Lecture Hour: METR112-01: TTH 10:30 -11:45 AMMETR112-03: TTH 1:30 PM – 2:45 PM

Place: DH515Office Hour:

12:30 PM -1:20 PM, THmore (set via email)

Place: MSJ’s Office (DH613)TA: TBD

TA’s office: TBD

METR112

•I will meet with you for extra office hour whenever you need. •send email for appointment.

I am approachable!!!

References (not a text book):

Useful materials will be assigned on webpage/homework/class

(cheap!)“Understanding Weather & Climate” by Edward Aguado and James E. Burt (Third Edition)

Video collections: http://www.met.sjsu.edu/metr112-videos/

Learning Contract

• Instructor– On time and prepared.– Answers questions.– Approachable and friendly.– Fair with assignments and grades.– Genuinely concerned about your learning and

intellectual development.

Learning Contract• Students

– Make every effort to arrive on time; and if late, enter class quietly.

– Preserve a good classroom learning environment by a) refraining from talking when other people

are talking b) turning off cell phones.

– Be courteous to other students and the instructor.– Aware that learning is primarily their responsibility.– Aware of universities policy on academic integrity

and pledge to abide by them at all times. – Have read and understand what plagiarism is and

know how to cite sources properly.

Academic Integrity• Integrity of university, its courses and

degrees relies on academic standards.• Cheating:

– Copying from another’s test, cheatsheet etc.– Sitting an exam by, or as, a surrogate.– Submitting work for another

• Plagiarism:– Representing the work of another as one’s own

(without giving appropriate credit)

Plagiarism• Judicial Affairs

http://sa.sjsu.edu/judicial_affairs/index.html

• Look at the Student Code of Conduct

• Read through SJSU library site on Plagiarismhttp://www.sjlibrary.org/services/literacy/info_comp/

plagiarism.htm

• http://turnitin.com/

GreenSheet (see handout)

• Homework must online turnin (canvas)

• Class Participation

• Research Project

• Final grade

Let’s see some key global change observations…..

.

A Sad Rainfall Extreme Events

July 21, 2012, Beijing

• the heaviest rainfall in 61 years fell on the Chinese capital city of Beijing on July 21, 2012. The state news agency Xinhua at first said that 37 people had been killed by floods during and after the downpour, but today (July 26, 2012) the official death toll was raised to 77

• Extreme to 200mm

• Affect 1.9million people, 10 billons $ damage

A car moves on the rain-inundated road in the Daxing District of Beijing, capital of China, July 21, 2012.

Mechanisms for extreme rainfall over BJ: Why Beijing? Why Now?

Urban landscape enhance rainfall via three processes:

• Aerosol-cloud interactions

• UHI

• Canyon effect

Knowledge abut climate sysetm and climate change is needed

Change in surface temperature in 20th century

Two main points in this figure

• Global mean surface temperatures have increased 0.5-1.0°C since the late 19th century

• The 20th century's 10 warmest years all occurred in the last 15 years of the century

Note: 1. why is global mean? 2. what is surface air temperature? (see next few slides)

Temperature is measured by

therometer

Thermoeter is required by WMO (see next slide)

World Meteorological Organization (WMO) http://www.wmo.int/pages/index_en.html

Weather station

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Image:Translational-motion.gif

Observed temperature changes

1992-93Cooling due toMt. Pinatubo

Warming due to El Niño

Cooling due to La Niño

• Such an increase continues. The best scientific estimate is that global mean temperature will increase between 1.4 and 5.8 degrees C over the next century as a result of increases in atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gases. This kind of increase in global temperature would cause significant rise in average sea-level (0.09-0.88 meters), and other severe consequences

•Mean increase means that many regions increases much higher, and these regions have problems in terms of extreme heat, drought, flood.

•Global mean surface temperatures have increased 0.5-1.0°C since the late 19th century

•The 20th century's 10 warmest years all occurred in the last 15 years of the century

Why does this matter? (important!)

1979

2003

The Land and Oceans have both warmed, but…

Important point of this slide

• Although global mean surface has been warming up, for each region the change can be different! (can be no change, warming, or cooling)

Class activity: find out your grandpa’s hometown and see how the temperature is changed there?

Antarctic Ice Shelves

• Most common Ice Shelf: Giant floating platform of ice formed from glaciers located along coastlines

• 50-600 meters thick• Can last for thousands

of years• 10 major ice shelves in

Antarctica

Larsen Ice Shelf Break

Then and Now

Temperature rises have also led to the expansion of species ranges in Antarctica.

“Long term monitoring of continental Antarctic terrestrial vegetation is crucial for accurate measurement and predictions of vegetation dynamics in response to future temperature regimes around the world”

Video: Antarctic Wilkins Ice Shelf Collapse

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poKX6OnehTc

The “Keeling curve,” a long-term record of atmospheric CO2 concentration measured at the Mauna Loa Observatory (Keeling et al.). Although the annual oscillations represent natural, seasonal variations, the long-term increase means that concentrations are higher than they have been in 400,000 years.

Graphic courtesy of NASA’s Earth Observatory.

Still going up!

CO2 Unit

atmospheric concentrations of CO2 in units of parts per million by volume (ppmv). Each ppmv represents 2.13 X1015 grams, or 2.13 petagrams of carbon (PgC)in the atmosphere

Atmospheric CO2 concentrations rose from 288 ppmv in 1850 to 369.5 ppmv in 2000, for an increase of 81.5 ppmv, or 174 PgC. In other words, about 40% (174/441.5) of the additional carbon has remained in the atmosphere, while the remaining 60% has been transferred to the oceans and terrestrial biosphere.

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/

Atmosphere Composition and Structure

Vertical Layers of the Lower Atmosphere

Atmospheric Properties vs. Altitude

Table 1: Composition of the Atmosphere

GasPercentage by Volume

Nitrogen 78.08

Oxygen 20.95

Argon 0.93

Trace GasesCarbon dioxide 0.038Methane 0.00017Ozone 0.000004Chlorofluorocarbons 0.00000002Water vapor Highly variable

(0-4%)

Greenhouse Gases

• Carbon Dioxide

• Methane

• Nitrous Oxide

• CFCs (Chlorofluorocarbons)

• Others

Water vapor is one greenhouse house gas (GHG)In fact, it is the most abundant GHG

The early Greeks considered "air" to be one of four elementary substances; along with earth, fire, and water, air was viewed as a fundamental component of the universe. By the early 1800s, however, scientists such as John Dalton recognized that the atmosphere was in fact composed of several chemically distinct gases, which he was able to separate and determine the relative amounts of within the lower atmosphere. He was easily able to discern the major components of the atmosphere: nitrogen, oxygen, and a small amount of something incombustible, later shown to be argon. The development of the spectrometer in the 1920s allowed scientists to find gases that existed in much smaller concentrations in the atmosphere, such as ozone and carbon dioxide. The concentrations of these gases, while small, varied widely from place to place. In fact, atmospheric gases are often divided up into the major, constant components and the highly variable components, as listed below:

Although both nitrogen and oxygen are essential to human life on the planet, they have little effect on weather and other atmospheric processes.

The variable components, which make up far less than 1 percent of the atmosphere, have a much greater influence on both short-term weather and long-term climate. For example, variations in water vapor in the atmosphere are familiar to us as relative humidity.

Water vapor (H2O), CO2, CH4, N2O, and SO2 all have an important property: they absorb heat emitted by the earth and thus warm the atmosphere, creating what we call the "greenhouse effect." Without these so-called greenhouse gases, the surface of the earth would be about 30 degrees Celsius cooler - too cold for life to exist as we know it.

Global warming, on the other hand, is a separate process that can be caused by increased amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

The Greenhouse Effect (Important concept)

www.eecs.umich.edu/mathscience/funexperiments/agesubject/lessons/images/diagrampage.html

Greenhouse gases (important!)

CO2 CH4

N2O (Nitrous Oxiode, so called “laughing gas”)CFCO3

H2O

by the early 21st century, N2O had become nearly as important a greenhouse gas as methane. Their best guess was 0.7°C for N2O, and 0.3°C for methane. Wang et al. (1976).

http://www.visionlearning.com/library/module_viewer.php?mid=107

atmosphere is not uniform

•temperature decreased with altitude

division of the atmosphere into layers based on their thermal properties.

Troposphere: surface to12~18Km

all weather occurs

temperature decreases with -6.5° C/kilometer (average!)

Stratosphere: 18-50kmtemperature increase due toultraviolet (UV) absorption by Ozone (O3)

Thermosphere   The outermost layer of the atmosphere, where gas molecules split apart into ions.

Mesosphere 50-80km

Vertical Layers of the Lower Atmosphere

Vertical Layers of the Lower Atmosphere

Greenhouse Gases are here

Methane

Anthropogenic Methane Sources

• Leakage from natural gas pipelines and coal mines

• Emissions from cattle

• Emissions from rice paddies

Nitrous Oxide N2O

Anthropogenic Sources of Nitrous Oxide

• Agriculture

• Bacteria in Soils

• Nitrogen fertilizers

CFCs (Chlorofluorocarbons)

CFC-11

CFC-12

Sources of CFCs

• Leakage from old air conditioners and refrigerators

• Production of CFCs was banned in 1987 because of stratospheric ozone destruction– CFC concentrations appear to now be

decreasing – There are no natural sources of CFCs

One World

World Population 6,446,131,400

Human activitieschange environment

Class Participation Name_________

1. What is the surface temperature change from 1990 – 2000? Is it consistent with the change of greenhouse gases?

2. What are greenhouse gases? What is greenhouse effect?