The book is a primer for students of the climate. It will also be of use to anyone wishing to understand the science underlying global warming from increasing greenhouse gas concentrations.
Description
Content
- Man-Made Global Warming – an overview
- Introduction
- Why do greenhouse gases cause global warming?
- A simple picture of man-made global warming
- The more complete picture
- Conclusion
- Drivers of the Climate
- The difference between weather and climate
- Overview of the climate
- Heat energy transfer
- The Sun
- Warming of the Earth’s surface due to greenhouse gases
- Conclusion
- The Atmosphere
- Structure of the atmosphere
- Variation of pressure with altitude
- Variation of temperature with altitude in the troposphere – the lapse rate
- The Stratosphere
- The ozone layer
- The atmospheric electric circuit
- Conclusions
- The Principles of Cloud Formation
- Introduction
- Constituents of clouds
- Surface Tension
- Vapour pressure
- The formation of cloud droplets from CCN
- The effect of electric charge on the formation of water droplets
- Cosmic rays and cloud formation
- The hypothesis that ionization affects cloud formation
- Attempts to corroborate the hypothesised connection between cosmic rays and the climate
- Conclusions
- Energy circulation and monitoring
- The seasons
- Energy circulation
- Coriolis acceleration
- The wind direction
- Atmospheric circulation
- The circulation of the oceans
- Monitoring of the oceans and atmosphere
- The rising sea level
- Absorption of infra-red radiation
- Atomic spectra
- Molecular spectra
- The broadening of spectral lines
- Absorption of radiation
- The absorbance of the atmosphere
- Conclusions
- Climate Models
- Introduction
- Warming of the Earth’s surface by greenhouse gases
- The effect of increasing carbon dioxide levels – a simple picture
- More complete models of the climate
- Radiative Forcing (RF)
- Conclusions
- Measurement of the average global temperature
- Introduction
- Determination of the average temperatures from measurements on the Earth’s surface
- Measurements from space
- Comparison of satellite and surface measurements of the global average temperature
- History of the Earth and its climate
- Introduction
- Formation of the Solar System
- The Early Earth
- The Phanerozoic Eon starting about million years ago
- The last several million years
- Conclusion
- The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
- Introduction to the IPCC
- Climate Forcings
- Components of the scientific task
- Climate Modelling
- The ‘balancing-out process’
- The IPCC Review Process
- The IPCC’s caution
- The IPCC report AR
- Governmental Responses to the IPCC