Global Warming L. David Roper Professor Emeritus of Physics Virginia Polytechnic Inst. & St. Univ. Global Warming may be the greatest challenge that humans have encountered in the last 10,000 years.

Global Dimming due to pollution by burning oil. Global Dimming due to pollution by burning coal.

Last 200 Years Earth Temperature and Population Data The rapid temperature increase is very similar to the rapid world population increase. The root problem is too many people caused by the availability of easy energy! Mother Nature will take care of the problem if humans do not.

The Medieval Warm Period was not warmer than today!

Farming began. Next Ice Age should have started here. The Climatic Optimum was not warmer than today!

Projected sea-level rise into the future 1 meter

1 Meter Sea-Level Rise in Miami Beach, Florida

1000-Year Dust Bowl in Southwest United States

Carbon-Dioxide Concentration for Last 60 Million Years These concentrations correlate well with temperature. The last time CO2 was 1000 ppmv was 40-million years ago!

Temperature & CO2 are mutually reinforcing (positive feedback). We are only “smelling the smoke” now; the “fire” is yet to be seen! 8°C Region of Disaster!

About 8 Gt/yr in 2006!

Peak Oil

Limit Due to Peak Fossil Fuels Black curve = fossil-fuels & non-fossil fuels emissions. Red points are measured data. Peak is ~450 ppmv, in the disaster zone!

Limit Due to Peak Fossil Fuels Peak temperature is about 1.3°C above 1700 temperature. It remains almost level for a long time.

Saturated Ocean & Vegetation

Wild Card of Arctic Carbon Release ~Half of Arctic carbon is released. Puts ppmv well into disaster zone.

Wild Card of Arctic Carbon Release Peak temperature is about 1.8°C above 1700 temperature and drops slightly.

Saturation and Arctic Carbon Release Over 1000 ppmv peak at ~2150!!

Saturation and Arctic Carbon Release Dotted curve is for climate sensitivity changing from 3 to 4 with time.

Immediate Action Needed!  Move to electric rail transportation for freight and mass people movement asap.  Change personal transportation to biofueled plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles asap.  Make biofuels using only biofuels.  Build all new buildings with solar collectors and gardens on their roofs and with high energy efficiency.  Do not build any more coal power plants.  Use petroleum only for chemicals, not to burn.

Human-made Global Warming is challenging our Homo-sapiens brain to recognize the truth of climate science, make plans to mitigate Global Warming and put the plans into action. We are having trouble doing all three.

References  ingprediction.htm ingprediction.htm ingprediction.htm  ingMathematics.htm ingMathematics.htm ingMathematics.htm  mperature.htm mperature.htm mperature.htm  assLoss.htm assLoss.htm assLoss.htm  ingRoper.htm ingRoper.htm ingRoper.htm