Industrial Revolution and Climate Science The Industrial Revolution and Climate Science Source: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) The Earth’s climate is a complex interplay of “source” and “delivery” activities, proving as daunting to understand as the economy. Yet one can see trends in the past and present and make predictions about the future. Seeing the data, and identifying contributing factors, society is faced with a challenge on how to proceed. American Chemical Society

Industrial Revolution and Climate Science The Industrial Revolution: A future of limitless human achievement? 1830: George Stephenson's locomotive, The Rocket "Watt and Stephenson whispered in the ear of mankind their secret, that a half ounce of coal will draw two tons a mile …" The Conduct of Life, "Wealth" Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1860 Source: Wikipedia The Industrial Revolution, kick started in the latter 1700s with the development of the steam engine, rapidly changed society from farming and manual labor to manufacturing marvels of ever-awe-inspiring ability. By 1900, cities in the industrialized world had exploded in population, driven by coal and later by oil as fuels for the economy-driving fire. The inventions of distributed electricity for lighting and appliances, the gasoline-powered engine, and the airplane further revolutionized society and expanded the demand for and use of fuel-based energy. Modern living, with all of its wealth of success and promise, is a direct result of these inventions and therefore dependent on continuing to have vast affordable energy resources. American Chemical Society

Industrial Revolution and Climate Science The Industrial Revolution: A future of limitless human achievement? Achievements unimagined by Emerson require unimaginable amounts of energy. What else was unimagined? Source: Wikipedia Source: Matt Lemmon Presently, affordable energy mostly comes in the form of “fossil fuels” including petroleum (oil and its derivative products like gasoline), coal, and natural gas. Burning these substances produces heat that can drive energy production. But burning oil, coal, or natural gas produces carbon dioxide – by an amount dependent on its composition (e.g. natural gas produces at least a factor of 6 less carbon dioxide than gasoline but more is natural gas is needed to do the same amount of work). Other essentials of modern living like making cement for construction also produce carbon dioxide. So the engine that drives the economy and permits vast growth of wealth and population is (currently) fueled by vast amounts of energy sources that when used produce vast amounts of carbon dioxide. American Chemical Society

Industrial Revolution and Climate Science The Industrial Revolution: unintended consequences Why is the climate changing? Source: Skeptical Science Source: Skeptical Science At the same time that carbon dioxide emissions have increased due to expanded and accelerated use of fossil fuels, the Earth has absorbed great amounts of heat and experienced temperature increases.   The graph at left shows that in the last 50 years, exactly when fossil fuel use has gone into overdrive, the ocean has absorbed considerable amounts of heat now spilling into land and atmospheric reservoirs. The graph at right shows the result of this heat absorption: a significant increase in average temperature of the globe just as carbon dioxide emissions have increased with fossil fuel use. A measured increase of 100 parts per million carbon dioxide – unprecedented many thousands of years previous – has been accompanied by a temperature increase of 0.8 degree Celsius (1.4 degrees Fahrenheit). What impact are these heat and temperature increases having? American Chemical Society

Industrial Revolution and Climate Science The Industrial Revolution: unintended consequences Winters are getting milder Source: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) These hardiness zone maps are the data that gardeners and farmers use to tell how severe winters are likely to be where they live. What we see here is that milder winters have moved north in the decade and a half between these maps. Milder winters generally mean later freezing and earlier melting of lakes and ponds. This is what is shown in the graph of the ice cover on Lake Mendota, which borders Madison, the capital of Wisconsin. Over about 150 years, the amount of time the lake has been frozen over has declined from about four months to about three months. We also see that the lake is now in a milder zone than it has been. Data like these are common for lakes and ponds that have such records. American Chemical Society

Industrial Revolution and Climate Science The Industrial Revolution: unintended consequences Land and sea ice are disappearing Grinnell Glacier, Glacier Nat'l Park, 1940 Grinnell Glacier, Glacier Nat'l Park, 2006 Source: NOAA Source: NOAA At the beginning of the 20th century, Glacier National Park in Montana had about 150 glaciers. In 2010, that number had shrunk to 25, all of which are rapidly disappearing. Grinnell Glacier is one of the 10 largest that remains. In the 1940 photo, you can just begin to see the formation of Upper Lake Grinnell at the extreme tip of the glacier. By 2006, the lake had greatly expanded as the glacier melted. Satellite images show that the area covered by Arctic sea ice during the summer melt season has been declining for several decades. In August 2012, the area shown here was the smallest it has ever been during this period and the summer melt was not yet complete. To give an idea how much the ice area has shrunk, the magenta line shows the median area the summer ice has covered during this period of satellite observations. There is evidence the global temperature is increasing – why is that? Recall that these changes have occurred as the carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have increased as more fossil fuels are burned. What is the connection between carbon dioxide and increases in the planet’s heat budget and global average temperature increases? American Chemical Society

Industrial Revolution and Climate Science Earth’s climate controls Energy balance: solar energy in = Earth radiant energy out Source: American Chemical Society The answer comes from how the planet keeps warm despite being surrounded by the frigid vacuum of space. When you stand in sunlight, you feel warmer than when you are in shadow. You can feel that the light (radiant energy) the sun gives off carries energy that can warm an object—you. Although you usually cannot see it, all objects give off radiant energy. Sometimes you can feel this energy. For example, if there is a pot of hot water on your stove, you can feel the radiant energy it gives off without touching it. You usually call what you feel “heat,” but it is more accurate to think of it as a kind of invisible light called “infrared radiation”. This energy warms your skin, just like the sunlight. The amount of infrared radiation energy a warmed object gives off depends on its temperature—the higher the temperature, the more energy is given off.   Just as sunlight warms you, it warms the surface of the Earth. The Earth does not continue to get hotter and hotter as it absorbs energy from the sun, because it gives off energy to space as invisible infrared radiation. In order to come into energy balance, the amount of infrared radiation energy given off by the Earth has to be equal to the amount of energy absorbed from the sunlight. The amount of infrared radiation energy the Earth gives off depends on its temperature. The average Earth temperature required for energy balance with the sun would be a frigid –18 C (0 F), if no atmospheric greenhouse effect existed. The greenhouse effect has kept the Earth’s average temperature a good deal higher for billions of years, which made it possible for life as we know it to evolve. Over the past several thousand years the average Earth temperature has been about 15 C (59 F). American Chemical Society

Industrial Revolution and Climate Science Earth’s climate controls Energy balance: effect of atmospheric gases Source: IPCC This figure illustrates how greenhouse gases keep the Earth warmer than it would be without them. Part of the radiant energy from the sun passes through the atmosphere, is absorbed, and warms the Earth’s surface. The rest is reflected and not absorbed. Energy radiated away by the Earth is shown on the right. The straight arrow represents the fraction of the emitted infrared radiation that passes into space through the atmosphere without change. The rest of the infrared radiation is absorbed by the tiny amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and then re-emitted in all directions. This ability to absorb and re-emit infrared radiation is the critical requirement for greenhouse gases. These greenhouse gases have maintained Earth’s warm temperature for billions of years. American Chemical Society

Industrial Revolution and Climate Science Earth’s climate controls have changed Atmospheric carbon dioxide–past and present Source: Wikipedia What has changed to cause differences in the atmospheric greenhouse effect? Look at these data from air bubbles trapped in ice on Antarctica. During almost all of the past 400,000 years, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere varied but never rose above about 300 carbon dioxide molecules per million air molecules. Other data in the ice show that the carbon dioxide valleys correspond to ice ages. The peaks correspond to warm periods like the one we have experienced for about the past 12,000 years. When there is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the greenhouse effect is stronger and the Earth is warmer.   The inset in the graph shows the amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide during the past 1000 years. For most of this time, the carbon dioxide was about 280 parts per million, but began to rise during the 18th century and has now reached almost 400 parts per million. The last short section of the inset plot shows the data from direct measurements of the atmospheric carbon dioxide that began in 1957. These data are shown in more detail on the second graph. The bottom line is that the recent unprecedented increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased the greenhouse effect. The result is that the Earth is not in energy balance with the sun. The Earth is gaining more energy than it is radiating back into space, and as we saw, the planet’s average temperature is increasing. American Chemical Society

Industrial Revolution and Climate Science Cause of Earth’s climate changes Present dependence on fossil fuel burning Source: IPCC So the Earth is getting warmer over the same time span as increases in carbon dioxide production due to burning fossil fuels for energy. Is this coincidental or is there a connection? The increase in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases began just before 1800, shot up during the 20th century, and continues to increase. Historically, this period began with the invention of the steam engine that powered the Industrial Revolution. The engines depended on burning coal, which produces carbon dioxide. More recently, electrical power production and transportation have enormously increased the burning of fossil fuels—coal, oil, and natural gas—all of which produce carbon dioxide.   Some of the evidence that the added carbon dioxide comes from fossil fuel burning is illustrated on the right hand plots. Carbon atoms come in two varieties called isotopes. The carbon-13 isotope is a little heavier than the carbon-12 isotope. The amount of carbon-13 in fossil fuels is low. The carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels contains less carbon-13 than the carbon dioxide in the older atmosphere. Thus, addition of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning will decrease the proportion of carbon-13 in the atmosphere. The experimental data are shown in blue. You can see that the proportion of carbon-13 is decreasing as the carbon dioxide shown in the orange curve is building up. Burning fossil fuels requires oxygen. We would predict that burning fossil fuel should use up some of the Earth’s atmospheric oxygen as a great deal of carbon dioxide is produced. The experimental data in green show that the proportion of oxygen to nitrogen in the atmosphere is decreasing as carbon dioxide is building up. What does the future hold? American Chemical Society

Industrial Revolution and Climate Science The Industrial Revolution: unintended consequences Why is the climate changing? Source: Skeptical Science Source: Skeptical Science As we saw a few minutes ago, it would appear that with increased carbon dioxide emission, we anticipate more heat and temperature increases. The question is, how much will it increase and what will be the unanticipated consequences? American Chemical Society

Industrial Revolution and Climate Science Source: IPCC The Industrial Revolution: A boon that enormously benefits man. The Industrial Revolution: A boon that comes with an enormous energy price tag mostly paid for in burning fossil fuel. The Industrial Revolution: A boon that comes with the unintended consequence that carbon emissions are changing the Earth's climate in disturbing ways. The Industrial Revolution: A boon that requires the Watts and Stephensons of the 21st century to develop ways to use energy more efficiently, to produce alternative non-carbon-emitting sources, and to reduce the impact of carbon-emitting sources. Consider these statements: the first three describe how we have arrived at today. To date, a largely unconscious decision has been made to use vast energy sources that produce vast amounts of carbon dioxide. We are now presented with evidence that for Earth’s measurable history, raising carbon dioxide amounts in the atmosphere lead to raised global temperatures which result in a climate different from what we have been used to. Do we wish to live in a more predictable world, where the risk of unknowable economy-affecting weather and climate events is lessened? If so, it would appear we need to consciously choose energy sources that produce less if not zero carbon dioxide. Recall that the Industrial Revolution came from the ability to produce energy affordably, it just happened to be carbon-emitting fuels. If history is any lesson, innovating energy technology and then spreading it far and wide can drive the economy ever more. Should this energy technology decouple from down-the-road environmental destruction, its ultimate cost is even more affordable, then wealth and quality of life can conceivably grow to unprecedented levels. The choice then, is how does society want to plan its spending strategy – hoping that business as usual will defy historical cycles as uncertainty enters the market, or invest for innovation that historical cycles suggest ultimately pays ever-greater dividends. American Chemical Society