Day 3 – 17 Jan

News

Telling a different story – how ranchers who deny climate change come to love wind farms.

2021 U.S. Billion-dollar Weather and Climate Disasters in Historical Context – Hazard and Socioeconomic Risk Mapping (NOAA)Louisiana (p. 9)

The New Yorker: Three Climate Reports: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The U.S. National Blueprint For Transportation Decarbonization (White House 2022)

Preliminary US Greenhouse Gas Emissions Estimates for 2022 (Rhodium Group 2023)

GLOBAL CLIMATE HIGHLIGHTS – Globe in 2022 (European Commission 2023)

Assignment

Review these short discussions and videos of basic concepts about the earth’s atmosphere for the start of my presentation about basic climate science.

What is the temperature on the Moon?

What if the earth were like the moon, without an atmosphere?

Why is there an atmosphere around our earth and not around other planets?

How did the earth’s atmosphere form?

Heat capacity of water

Why water is the magic of climate and life. Things to think about: Why does ice float, rather than sink? What would the climate be like if ice didn’t float?

What are the main greenhouse gases?

Water as a GHG

Why water really controls the temperature of the planet, but why other GHGs set the thermostat.

What causes the seasons?

The ice age cycles

How Ice Ages Happen: The Milankovitch Cycles

Why the climate changes without human intervention

Where are we in the Milankovitch Cycles?

Would the planet be warming or cooling now, if there were no people?

Solar Variability

One more variable

What is Ocean Acidification?

This is a direct effect of CO2, separate from its effect on heat retention in the atmosphere.