Climate Change - Past, Present, and Future

This book is designed for first- and second-year university students (and their instructors) in earth science, environmental science, and physical geography degree programmes worldwide. The summaries at the end of each section constitute essential reading for policy makers and planners. It provides a simple but masterly account, with a minimum of equations, of how the Earth's climate system works, of the physical processes that have given rise to the long sequence of glacial and interglacial periods of the Quaternary, and that will continue to cause the climate to evolve. Its straightforward and elegant description, with an abundance of well chosen illustrations, focuses on different time scales, and includes the most recent research in climate science by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It shows how it is human behaviour that will determine whether or not the present century is a turning point to a new climate, unprecedented on Earth in the last several million years.

List of contents

Foreword xiii
 
Acknowledgements xv
 
About the companion website xvii
 
Introduction 1
 
PART I: THE CLIMATE ENGINE OF THE EARTH: ENERGY 5
 
1. Why are there many different climates on Earth? 7
 
2. Different climates . . . such diversity of life 11
 
2.1. The different climates on Earth 11
 
2.2. Climates, biomes and biodiversity 13
 
2.3. Climate and society 17
 
3. From a patchwork of climates to an average climate 19
 
3.1. Temperature and thermal equilibrium 19
 
3.2. The average temperature of the Earth's surface 21
 
3.3. Precipitation 24
 
3.4. Wind 25
 
3.5. Three major items in energy consumption 26
 
4. The global mean climate 27
 
4.1. The Sun, source of energy 27
 
4.2. The energy equilibrium at the Earth's surface 28
 
5. Atmosphere and ocean: key factors in climate equilibrium 33
 
5.1. Driving forces 34
 
5.2. The atmosphere 34
 
5.3. The oceans 42
 
5.4. Heat transport from the Equator to the poles 51
 
Part I: Summary 53
 
Part I: Notes 54
 
Part I: Further reading 54
 
PART II: MORE ON THE ENERGY BALANCE OF THE PLANET 55
 
6. Thermal radiation, solar and terrestrial radiation 57
 
6.1. Thermal radiation from a black body 57
 
6.2. The laws of black?]body radiation 58
 
6.3. Solar and terrestrial radiation 59
 
7. The impact of the atmosphere on radiation 61
 
7.1. Scattering and reflection 61
 
7.2. Absorption by a gas - the cut?]off approximation 62
 
7.3. Absorption of solar and terrestrial radiation by atmospheric gases 64
 
7.4. Direct transfer by the atmosphere 68
 
7.5. Major atmospheric constituents involved in radiative transfer 69
 
8. Radiative transfer through the atmosphere 73
 
8.1. Three radiative mechanisms that heat or cool the Earth's surface 73
 
8.2. The greenhouse effect 78
 
8.3. Radiative transfer: the roles of the different constituents 83
 
8.4. The radiation balance of the Earth 86
 
9. The energy balance 87
 
9.1. The energy balance at the surface of the Earth in the single?]layer model 87
 
9.2. The Earth's energy balance at equilibrium 89
 
9.3. The impact of human activity 91
 
9.4. The present unbalanced global energy budget 91
 
10. Climate forcing and feedback 93
 
10.1. Climate forcing 93
 
10.2. Feedbacks 95
 
10.3. Climate sensitivity 98
 
11. Climate modelling 99
 
11.1. The Energy Balance and Radiative-Convective Models 99
 
11.2. Three-dimensional Atmosphere Global Circulation Models 101
 
11.3. Three-dimensional models: ever-increasing refinements 103
 
11.4. Climate models - what for? 104
 
Part II. Summary 105
 
Part II. Notes 106
 
Part II. Further reading 107
 
PART III: THE DIFFERENT CAUSES OF CLIMATE CHANGE 109
 
12. The choice of approach 111
 
13. The Sun's emission 115
 
13.1. The impact on the climate 115
 
13.2. How emission varies 115
 
13.3. What are the consequences? 117
 
14. The position of the Earth with respect to the Sun 119
 
14.1. An overview 119
 
14.2. Irradiance, determined by orbital parameters 120
 
14.3. Changes in obliquity: the impact on the seasons 120
 
14.4. Changes in the Earth's orbit and eccentricity: the impact on the Earth-Sun distance 122
 
14.5. Precession of the axis of rotation: the impact on the Earth-Sun distance at different seasons 124
 
14.6. Chan

About the author

Marie-Antoinette Mélières, Docteur d'Etat in physics, taught basic physics and, later, climate and environmental science at Joseph Fourier University of Grenoble 1 and at the University of Savoie. Her research has covered various areas ranging from molecular spectroscopy and atmospheric physics to environmental and climate science. In 1995 she established the newsletter Global Change, published by the French National Committee on Climate Change, under the authority of the Academy of Sciences. The Committee is the French branch of the four international programs IGBP, WCRP, IHDP and Diversitas. She continued to edit this publication until 2008.
Chloé Maréchal, PhD, geochemist, is Maître de Conférences in the Observatoire des Sciences de l'Univers at Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, where she teaches Earth Sciences at first university degree level and at Masters level. In her research into the biogeochemical cycles of copper and zinc in the Earth's outer layers, she established a protocol for using isotopes of these elements by plasma-source mass spectrometry and investigated their isotopic fractionation in marine sediments, as well as in soils affected by human activity. She also worked on the geochemical cycle of boron, using its isotopic signal in marine biogenic carbonates as tool in paleo-oceanographic reconstructions.

Summary

This book is designed for first- and second-year university students (and their instructors) in earth science, environmental science, and physical geography degree programmes worldwide. The summaries at the end of each section constitute essential reading for policy makers and planners.

Product details

• Authors: Chloe Marechal, Chloé Maréchal, Marie-Antoinette Meli?res, M Melieres, Marie-Antoinette Melieres, Marie-Antoinette Marechal Melieres, Marie-Antoinett Mélières, Marie-Antoinette Mélières
• Publisher: Wiley, John and Sons Ltd
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 24.04.2015
• EAN: 9781118708514
• ISBN: 978-1-118-70851-4
• No. of pages: 416
• Subjects: Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Geosciences; Klimawandel, Geowissenschaften, Klimatologie, Glaziologie, Earth Sciences, Quaternary Science & Glaciology, Quartärforschung, Glaziologie, Climatology & Palaeoclimatology, Klimatologie u. Paläoklimatologie