News
How Biden hopes to use executive actions to address America’s “compounding crises”
Inauguration Day
What can President-Elect Biden Do on Day 1? We will talk about executive orders versus APA rules.
Assignment
We are going to continue our tour of basic climate science. We learned how to build a climate on a rock in space last class. This is a very simple introduction to the effects of solar radiation on the planet. While CO2 from fossil fuel is a major contributor to this warming effect, CO2 is not the only GHG, and burning fossil fuels is not the only factor that controls the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.
There is a separate effect of CO2 on the pH (acidity) of the ocean. This has a direct effect – independent of temperature changes – on many forms of sea life, especially anything with shells such as oysters.
Read through this article from last class. Do not worry if you do not understand the chemistry – when I was a grad student, I tutored medical students on acid-base chemistry and they did not understand it either.
This has a good video introduction to the carbon cycle and additional information on acidification.
Climate versus Weather
World Meteorological Organization Climate Definitions
National Climate Assessment – Extreme Weather
One of the problems in teaching the public about climate change is that we only see the weather. Climate is a long term average of weather. These two short articles present the basic definitions for climate, weather, and extreme weather.
The IPCC
Before we get into climate models and analysis of climate change, we need to think about this key question – who do we trust? The IPCC was set up through the UN, with the support of the United States, to be an impartial program to evaluate climate science. We are going to look at how it is structured to increase trust in its results.
Then we are going to learn about the IPCC. This is the key international scientific organization on climate science.
Start here:
Then review these short factsheets:
How does the IPCC select its authors?
What literature does the IPCC assess?
How does the IPCC review process work?
How does the IPCC approve reports?
How does the IPCC deal with alleged errors?
How well does this organization succeed in making the IPCC impartial?
There is also a United State Climate Assessment, mandated by Congress:
US Climate Change Research Program