Questions tagged [climate-change]
Questions about changes of the climate system, including questions about global warming.
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Is there really a “last chance” to stop climate change given current policies out of China?
I was reading this article:
https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/10/world/climate-change-us-coal-cop24/index.html
Which basically says that the US is destroying our last chance at making real changes to stop ...
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2answers
27 views
where to download NASA-NEX daily downscaled datasets?
I'm looking to download a small geographic area of the CMIP5 models part of NASA-NEX dataset. Previously I relied on the Planet OS OpenNEX GDDP website which had a great tool for selecting geographic ...
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2answers
41 views
Are plastics a carbon sink and how much carbon is released to the atmosphere making them?
If we were to make some technical jump to renewable fuel and renewable energy, would making plastics from oil release green house gasses, how much, and would plastic function as a carbon sink?
Sorry ...
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3answers
58 views
Could the current climate change events cause long-term problems in the viability of Earth to sustain life?
There are a lot of reports on the consequences of climate change for the relative short term. From what I understand, in the next 100 years or so, we will face:
global floods of coastal areas, ...
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1answer
48 views
Does a climate change big data provider exist? [closed]
Does a big data provider (Like a Bloomberg, which is the world's leading financial data provider) exist which includes ALL the possible informations and parameters about climate change or in general ...
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0answers
37 views
CO2 fertilization factor for estimate increases in biomass
Is there some factor or equation (derived from some paper) that we can multiply in the tropical forest biomass in current condition to estimate co2 fertilization effect in future (e.g rcp8.5 scenario)?...
2
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0answers
48 views
Which software is easiest to use to create plots like these? [closed]
There seems to be many options for a single problem, but each with different approaches and complications, and that makes is confusing and time consuming for this beginner to work out which to use. I'...
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0answers
24 views
Seeking CMIP5 or CMIP6 globally in .nc format
Is there in some ftp storage, a pre-processing CMIP5 data for direct download in netcdf extention?
6
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1answer
139 views
Tipping point theory, historical examples
This article gives a wonderful overview of tipping point theory, where a large system can be brought into a different state by a small perturbation.
Searching online I have found mostly articles on ...
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1answer
37 views
How much net carbon can coral sequester?
So I am wondering how much carbon any given coral can sequester given that carbon dioxide dissolves in water and forms carbonic acid, and coral uses that carbonic acid in their own calcification ...
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0answers
26 views
What are the environmental effects of leaking hydrogen from large-scale energy storage mechanisms?
I recently have calculated the total cost of an energy system that is based on wind power as the primary power source and hydrogen as the energy storage mechanism. The total system costs are ...
5
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1answer
73 views
Technical term for percentage of CO2 remaining in the atmosphere
I have a theoretical exercise where I calculated the amount of CO2 that is released to the atmosphere per year (4.6 ppm). We assume that the relative increase of CO2 is 2 ppm, hence the percentage of ...
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1answer
64 views
How can half a degree of average temperature result in such devastating impact on coral reefs?
Yesterday I read a number of news stories about the new IPCC's (International Panel on Climate Change) report regarding the current state of global warming. It reported that we are on track for ...
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2answers
75 views
Will a country that cares for its environment be affected by climate change due to other countries' activities?
Let's say my country is very environment conscious, has lots of trees and animals, protects the forest, uses clean/green energy, and has all kinds of environment friendly policies you can imagine. ...
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1answer
52 views
Over which surface will the albedo changes due to clear and overcast skies have the greatest impact?
With respect to climate change, will the changes in albedos due to clear skies and overcast skies have the greatest impact on incoming solar radiation over ocean, sea ice, or land?
My thoughts:
On a ...
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0answers
19 views
Clarification: Effective temperature, emission temperature, and effective emission temperature
This terminology is quite confusing to me. Are effective temperature, emission temperature, and effective emission temperature the same thing? Where does this occur, at the surface, or at some ...
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0answers
56 views
Optical Thickness of the Atmosphere
Homework question:
Show that the absorption optical thickness of the atmosphere
at pressure $p$ (i.e., between $p$ and the top of the atmosphere) as a function of the mixing ratio
of the ...
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0answers
66 views
Do man-made machines take natural Nitrogen out of the atmosphere and in turn cause global warming?
I read in Wikipedia that, "Natural Nitrogen, Dinitrogen forms about 78% of Earth's atmosphere. Dinitrogen is the most abundant uncombined element in the atmosphere."
Do man-made machines destroy the ...
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0answers
31 views
How is the vertical distribution of water vapor changing?
In this publication about data assimilation and observations (paywall alert) in the chapter General Concepts in Meteorology and Dynamics (by Andrew Charlton-Perez, William Lahoz, Richard Swinbank, ...
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0answers
37 views
How Warm would the Earth have to get for any crops to grow in the Antarctic Peninsula/South Orkneys
I found some little silly speculation about settling Antarctica when it warms up, and I wanted to know the minimum amount the world would have to warm up in order for just the most equator-ward ...
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2answers
135 views
Does Earth risk losing its oceans to space due to global warming?
I read that we are facing the very real possibility of Earth's average temperature rising by more that 2 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.
As I understand our planet is constantly loosing ...
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vote
1answer
76 views
Could glacial melt alter plate tectonic movement?
Let's say some event caused runaway glacial melt, and removed half of the ice currently locked away in specific areas of the planet. Would the significant weight changes on various plates and fault ...
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1answer
88 views
Geological evidence about climate change: has there ever been a period with a rate of climate change as great as it is today?
Most statistics about climate change are based on climate data over the last 150 year (as long as records have been kept). This seems irrelevant in terms of the geological time scale of temperature ...
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2answers
98 views
How would Earth map look like if all ice melts?
Is there somewhere a map which indicates which areas and cities become sea?
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0answers
39 views
Human activities in Prehistory, and Global Cooling
If we assume that nowadays the humans are responsible of the global warming by the emission of too much CO$_2$ in the atmosphere, why we should not assume that
the Ice Ages occurred because the ...
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1answer
48 views
Equations for Global Temperature Models
I'm a volunteer for 350, a grassroots organization that is fighting against climate change through education and advocacy. We're all volunteers, not climate scientists, and I'm looking for some ...
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1answer
56 views
What was the percentage of land mass in prehistoric times when temperatures were high enough that we had no ice caps?
I grew curious after watching a presentation about the large creatures of prehistoric times. One of the theories cited about why creatures were so big was the increased oxygen in the atmosphere due to ...
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3answers
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How do 'greenhouse gases' let heat in, but not let it out?
That honestly doesn't make any sense to me. How could heat pass through a gas one way but not the other? Its not like our upper atmostphere has a bunch of doors that can only open one way. To me, that ...
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1answer
75 views
Was climate change inevitable anyway, or is there more to it?
Climate change is now one of the greatest challenges facing humanity, but it seems that we have been here before; if we look at the world's climate over a much longer period than 150 years.
During ...
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1answer
57 views
Intuition on overall effects from climate change under different levels of warming
I am not a climate scientist, but I have been reading climate literature lately for my own education. Much of it discusses various effects that could be expected with different levels of warming, ...
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0answers
23 views
Relationship between Earth's heat dispersion rate (average surface air temperature from summer to winter time) and greenhouse gases
What is the most effective way to study global warming and the role of greenhouse gases using a methodology based on analyzing the Earth's seasonal variations (summer-winter) of the temperature of ...
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1answer
45 views
In terms of the greenhouse effect, what is the Earth's heat capacity?
(Question moved from physics to earth science)
Has the earth’s atmosphere reached an equilibrium at which the input radiation energy roughly equals its output, or is the output significantly lower ...
2
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1answer
126 views
To what year do we need to return to prevent climate change?
I regularly see articles like this where a country has or has committed to reduce their carbon emissions by a certain percentage in relation to a certain year. That article mentions that Scotland has ...
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1answer
66 views
Does “Arctic Greening” mean an increase in the spatial extent of vegetation, an increase in particular types of vegetation, or both?
I am trying to study the impact of biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) on the atmospheric chemistry of the Arctic Region which has been said to be "greening", by taking HCHO as a proxy.
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2answers
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If plants convert a greenhouse gas into a non-greenhouse gas, do they cool?
Plants turn Carbon Dioxide into Oxygen, that is not a greenhouse gas. But Carbon Dioxide is.
Therefore, wouldn't plants cool the area?
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1answer
565 views
Every 202,500 years, Earth wanders in a new direction; does it affect climate?
I refer to this article on nytimes.com: Every 202,500 Years, Earth Wanders in a New Direction
TLDR: Scientists believe the earth's orbit oscillates between circular
and more elliptical due to the ...
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1answer
78 views
Does global warming affect tsunamis?
I have been doing some research into global warming, and I was curious as to whether or not increasing the temperature of the oceans would affect tsunamis to any significant degree.
My gut tells me ...
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0answers
39 views
Quantifying long term melt record on glacier surface
I intend to create a long term melt record on a glacier surface. What are parameters required to efficiently calculate the same using satellite, weather station observations & reanalysis datasets (...
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0answers
40 views
Global climate change
We all know that global climate change is becoming a big real change that is affecting the world's ecosystems and life cycles.
Will global climate change affect the hot areas of the world or deserts ...
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0answers
25 views
Where I find the info about what plants, trees can be planted in a locality
I would like to know what plants, trees can be planted in a locality. I wanted this info around the globe based on latitude and longitude or by some other means. Is there a source organisation/source ...
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0answers
17 views
Trying to calculate the percentage of carbon emissions that is offset by 45,000 acres?
In my problem there is an average net ecosystem production rate of:
0.25kgC/m2/yr
Am asked:
a. What percentage of 140,000.000tons/yr would be offset from reforesting 45,000 acres?
...
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2answers
85 views
What does 5,000,000 tonnes of CO2 look like?
Reading a news article Probe after Gorgon releases millions of tonnes of greenhouse gas, I am confused. CO2 is a gas, right? Gases are not very dense, right? So what does 5MT of the stuff look like?...
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2answers
31 views
Calculating exoatmosphereic flux and figuring out amount of SW Earth will absorb at an albedo of 0.3?
Am working through two problems which I am not sure if I am handling correctly. Here they are:
a. If the Earth decreases its distance from the sun by 0.03
Astronomical Units (AU), what will be ...
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1answer
68 views
Global warming versus nuclear half-lives [closed]
What is (roughly) the half-life of the materials used/generated in a nuclear plant, if that plant goes into meltdown? Could the world bounce back from global warming in a shorter time period than that ...
5
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2answers
112 views
Winter in the Northern Hemisphere in July? Can anyone explain it?
The July 2007 issue of the National Geographic Magazine dedicates several pages to "Climate Change" and "Global Warming". The author explains in detail the Earth's movements and how they provoke ...
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1answer
35 views
How sustainable is timber housing? [closed]
Recently I watch a video on which they made a pretty impressively large building complex for housing out of timber. And they were saying that timber is sustainable compared to concrete and such. From ...
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0answers
56 views
Gulf stream weakening affects on both ends of the system - Europe and Carribean
There have been reports about the Gulf Stream weakening. Everything I have read about this concentrates on the (possibly substantial) cooling this would cause in Europe.
If this weakening occurs, ...
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0answers
34 views
How does one analyze this graph on atmospheric C02 data obtained from the Mauna Loa observatory?
Graph I am analyzing:
What I am trying to figure out from the graph is:
What is the range for CO2 over the record (approximation)
What are the major forcings for the overall trend in this record
...
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23 views
How to analyze this data showing atomospheric CO2, CH4 and tempertures obtain from an ice sample?
Here is the chart:
My questions are:
Is the atmosphere in equilibrium over this record?
how would I determine what the maximum and minimum values for each
record is (approximation).
Is there a ...
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0answers
80 views
Will the recent findings regarding nitrogen rock weathering alter climate change projections?
I've seen a few articles lately about research published in the Journal Science that concludes that 26% of the nitrogen in the ecosystem is from rock weathering. These results seem to fill in a ...
