Global Issues

Any change in the climate must involve some form of energy redistribution within the global climate system. Nevertheless, forcing agents which do not directly affect the energy budget of the atmosphere (the balance between incoming solar radiation and outgoing terrestrial radiation (see Figure 1.3), are considered to be non-radiative mechanisms […]

The third orbital variation is that of precession. The Sun lies at one of the focal points of the Earth’s orbital ellipse. Due to the gravitational interaction of other planetary bodies in the solar system, primarily the Moon and the planet Jupiter, the perihelion (the point at which the Earth […]

Today a consensus amongst scientists is growing that mankind, through the emissions of greenhouse gases (section 1.2.1), is enhancing the Earth’s natural greenhouse effect (section 1.2.4). Before investigating the evidence for anthropogenic climate change and global warming, it is useful to review the nature of the Earth’s greenhouse effect. Solar […]

In response to the reports from the IPCC, the United Nations Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for a Framework Convention on Climate Change (INC/FCCC) was established, and adopted by over 150 countries in 1992 as a blueprint for precautionary action. The main objective of the FCCC (Article 2) was to achieve a […]

The issue of climate change detection discussed in the last section introduces the wider concern of future climate change. Although predictions of climate change thousand, millions and even hundreds of millions of years from now could be made based on our knowledge of longer term climate changes (see chapters 2 […]

The recent addition of anthropogenic sources of methane, as for CO2, has disturbed the pre-industrial atmospheric flux equilibrium. Currently, the amount of methane emitted into the atmosphere is greater than the total removed, and observed atmospheric increase of methane is currently 37Mt/a (2.5Mt/a). Consequently, atmospheric methane concentrations are increasing. Figure […]

In section 1.3.1 it was identified that the oceans store an immense amount of heat energy, and consequently play a crucial role in the regulation of the global climate system. In order to explain the observed hemispheric synchroneity of glaciation, despite periods of directly opposed orbital forcing in the two […]

By the early Mesozoic (Triassic Period), the final suturing of all continents to form Pangea (see Figure 5.4) was complete (about 220Ma). The combination of a gigantic landmass and lower global sea level (associated with reduced rates of tectonic movement) should have resulted in extremely continental climates, with associated aridity. […]

Sections 3.2.1.1 to 3.2.1.4 aim to provide only an overview of the standard practises observed in the collection of climate data. For a fuller account, the reader is referred to Linacre (1992). 3.2.1.1. Measurement of Temperature Many surface air temperature records extend back to the middle part of the last […]