Industrial Revolution and the Impact on Global Climate
By Michael Dore
• 1859 Tyndall
• 1896 Arrhenius
• 1870-1910 Second
• 1938 Callendar
• 1956 Phillips
• 1957 Revelle
• 1960 Keeling
• 1967 Manabe
• 1985 Villach conference
• 1989 Fossil-fuel
industries form Global Climate
Coalition
• 2001 Third IPCC report
History
Industry
•
• The largest source of CO2
emissions globally is
combustion of fossil fuels such
as coal, oil
plants, automobiles, industrial
facilities
Overview
• The current warming trend is of particular
significant
• Greenhouse gases demonstrated in
century.
• Increased levels of greenhouse gases must cause
• Ice cores drawn from Greenl
tropical mountain glaciers show that
climate responds to changes in solar output, in
Causes
• Most climate scientists agree
of
expansion of
– water vapor
– carbon dioxide
– methane
– nitrous oxide
– chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)
• Burning of fossil fuels
• The clearing of l
• More than 90 percent probability that human
activities over
warmed our planet.
• Carbon dioxide levels have raised from 280
parts per million to 379 parts per million in
CO2 production by humans
• 29 gigatons of CO2 a year
• Atmospheric CO2 is at its highest
level in 15 to 20 million years
• A natural change of 100ppm
normally takes 5,000 to 20,000
years. The recent increase of
100ppm has taken just 120 years.
• Atmospheric concentration of CO2
has increased by 35% since
beginning of
industrialization.
The Possible Consequences
• Hotter
• More Precipitation
• Higher Sea Level
• Shifting climate pattern
Carbon Dioxide Concentration
Sea Level
Global Surface Temperature
Arctic Sea Ice
What can we do?
• Individual responses
• Nuclear energy
• O
– solar power
– wind power
– hydrokinetics
• Switching from high-carbon fuels like coal
fuels
– natural gas
• Carbon sequestration
– Geologic sequestration
• In my opinion
Recap
• Industry has made
has come at a cost that we are now seeing.
• Because with
amount of burning fossil fuels for energy.
• The burning of a hydrocarbon (fossil fuel) produces carbon dioxide.
• This carbon dioxide production has become so significant that it has
led to increased temperatures, higher sea levels,
amounts.
• If we as a society do not start making some changes it seems as if
• While
emissions such as carbon free energy sources, using more reducedcarbon
fuels,
would to be to use a combination of
developed.
Sources
• Conway EM. Atmospheric Science at NASA: A History Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 2008.
• Fleming JR, ed. Classic Papers on Global Warming Online (PALE). 2008. At
http://wiki.nsdl.org/index. php/PALE:ClassicArticles/GlobalWarming.
• IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, Summary for Policymakers.
• Le Treut H, Somerville R, Cubasch U, Ding Y, Mauritzen C, et al. Historical overview of climate
change science. In: Solomon S, Qin D, Manning M, Chen Z, Marquis M, et al. eds. Climate Change
2007. The Physical Basis of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group I to
Assessment Report of
127. Online at http://www.ipcc.ch/
• T.C. Peterson et.al., "State of
American Meteorological Society, v. 90, no. 8, August 2009, pp. S17-S18
• V. Ramaswamy et.al., “Anthropogenic
Stratospheric Cooling,” Science 311 (24 February 2006), 1138-1141
• Weart SR The Discovery of Global Warming, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Harvard University Press; 2008
• Weart SR. The Discovery of Global Warming, revised edition. 2008. At
http://www.aip.org/history/climate
• Weart SR. The Idea of Anthropogenic global climate change in
2010 1 67–81.
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