Questions tagged [climate-change]
Questions about changes of the climate system, including questions about global warming.
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Can volcanos change the climate?
I have heard politicians claiming that volcanoes are the sole cause of global warming and using so called "NASA data" to show that the Earth is actually cooling instead of warming.
While the nature ...
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Is volume of air increasing as CO2 levels increase?
CO2 levels are increasing, they have crossed 400 ppm, which means that of every million gas molecules in the air, 400 are of CO2.
It has been increasing. Does that mean the total volume of air in the ...
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Why are CO2 sensors so expensive when CO sensors aren't?
Please excuse me if Earth Science is not the correct place to ask this question.
I read a New York Times article about increasing $\small\mathsf{CO_2}$ levels in the atmosphere: "Carbon in Atmosphere ...
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Did climate cool down when underground hydrocarbons stocks formed?
As far as I understand, the dominant theory of modern climate change says that recent warming is mainly caused by the massive burning of hydrocarbons that used to be stored in solid form mostly ...
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Why does the rising of high clouds due to climate change impart positive radiative feedback on radiative forcing?
As seen in the figure below.
The larger the temperature difference between surface and cloud, the more positive the radiative forcing is from the cloud.
So as the cloud moves up, it supposedly ...
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Unstable North Polar Vortex?
What would cause a polar vortex to become unstable a split into 3 smaller ones? How rare is this and what long term effects could this cause if the vortex stays unstable?
http://www.severe-weather.eu/...
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Is the Younger Dryas associated with an extinction event?
It's often said that, while warming and cooling have happened before, what is unusual about the current anthropogenic warming is that it's happening so fast, relative to previous warming phases$^1$. ...
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Impacts of high-altitude emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) compared to sea level GHG emissions
I often hear that the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) by planes is particularly concerning because the emission of GHGs at high altitudes has an even higher impact on global warming than the ...
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How do I calculate Per capita $\ce{CO2}$ emissions?
I need to find the per capita $\ce{CO2}$ emissions for Canada in 2010 (expressed in kg/day). I know that Canada had $\ce{CO2}$ emissions of 0.55 (Gt) and a population of 34 million in 2010.
I am just ...
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About the actual radiative impact of greenhouse gas emission over time
Say we will emit a certain amount of greenhouse gas over the next 50 years (e.g. 100 billion tons CO2-eq in total). What would happen if I implement a certain GHG mitigation effort to cut the same ...
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Does natural plant decomposition release more greenhouse gases than burning
I understand that all plant matter releases CO2 as it decomposes and also when it burns in, for example, a forest fire. My assumption, upon which this question is based, is that the CO2 release is the ...
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Regarding various types of atmospheric pollution
Does all the car pollution (from about 150 million cars at least in the U.S. and a lot more in all of North America and the rest of the world) all the smoke-stack pollution of various factories and ...
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Does the long-term ice-core temperature record provide reasonable evidence that the current temperature trend is not anthropogenic?
When looking at the long term ice-core temperature record, it very clearly shows a ~100,000 year cyclical trend with warming spikes and gradual cooling. To the untrained eye, it seems that such a ...
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What is the potential impact of hurricane intensification and sea level rise on coastal flooding?
Climate change has the potential to increase flooding by hurricane intensification (magnitude and intensity) and by sea level rise. Many communities around the world are already exposed to coastal ...
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Noctilucent clouds and anthropogenic climate change
In reading about observing noctilucent clouds, several articles about this phenomena, such as Science Daily's Spectacular 'Night-shining' Clouds Could Be A Harbinger Of Climate Change, suggest that ...
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Does clearing snow contribute to climate change?
I've been reflecting on climate change and pondering how much of it is truly man-made. Anyone who's shoveled a walkway know that the snow melts faster beside the walkway than it does in the middle of ...
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What makes a nuclear winter so extreme and destructive?
This may be a sort of, pertinent to the times, and disturbing question, inspired by the difficulties surrounding North Korea and the situation with it and nuclear weapons.
I've heard of this idea of "...
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I just read news that Antarctica had set a new record high temperature, above 18 °C. How can this be the case if it is currently winter there?
Currently it is winter in Antarctica. According to news I read, Antarctica has set a new record high temperature, above 18 °C. How did this temperature records occur?
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Could this study "totally dismantle" Global Warming claims?
Could this study "totally dismantle" Global Warming claims?
That's the assertion made in the article ‘Bombshell’ climate-change study could totally dismantle the claim humans are causing global ...
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Sea Level Rise due to Climate Change
I've been trying to make sense of the argument surrounding sea level rise and not getting very far.
Those who claim that Sea Level Rise is insignificant generally assert that we have been unable to ...
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What is the consensus among geologists about climate change being caused by humans?
I'm terribly frustrated with the way that climate change has been debated in Europe. I live in the Netherlands and members of one of the biggest parties here, the Party for Freedom (PVV), frequently ...
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Why is carbon pollution given more importance than Sulfur pollution or Nitrogen pollution?
Nitrous oxide ($N_2O$) - primary greenhouse gas
Carbon dioxide ($CO_2$) - primary greenhouse gas
Methane ($CH_4$) - primary greenhouse gas, explosive
Nitrogen monoxide ($NO$) - secondary greenhouse ...
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What caused peak CO2 to rise, starting about 400,000 years ago?
This question assumes the accuracy of this (and similar) charts.
Source of image.
From the image, CO2 peaked at about 260, perhaps 265 ppm during the interglacial periods between 800,000 years ago ...
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Why does the Arctic warm so fast despite being so white?
It may be a silly question but why does the Arctic warm so fast despite being so white ("albedo" is the word, I believe)? Isn't all that whiteness supposed to deflect all those pesky sun ...
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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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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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Is altitude of everything decreasing due to sea level rise?
We know that sea level is rising, though some people say climate change is fake.
Altitude is defined as the height of something measured from sea level.
Since sea level is increasing, and the ...
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Will global warming lead to agriculture in the Arctic?
From what I understand, global warming will make growing food a lot harder in areas like the American Midwest because temperatures will become too high for most crops. At the same time, Arctic (and ...
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Why does the emission of aircrafts at higher altitudes have a greater effect on the climate?
I am trying to understand the footprint of a flight.
First Wikipedia says (without quoting a source):
The level and effects of CO2 emissions are currently believed to be broadly the same ...
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Carbon's role in ocean acidification
This might seem like a basic question, but I'm a little confused about the effects on ocean acidification of different carbon compounds.
I have heard that increased levels of carbon dioxide in the ...
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Any historical examples of destructive climate warming?
Summation: Local cooling climate changes, since the last ice age seem relatively common and all seem to cause significant harm to human population. But I can't find instances of the reverse, warming ...
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Dataset for expected sea level rise in case of massive meltdowns (Greenland/Antarctica)
Around the time climate change became a 'public issue' (let's say shortly after An inconvenient truth came out), figures started getting published about the expected (global) sea level rise in case of ...
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Will the Mini Ice Age solve our Global Warming Heat problem
There is news on the web saying that there will be Mini Ice Age in couple of decades.
The question is: Will this Mini Ice Age take away all the excessive heat and prevent Global Warming?
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High albedo vs low albedo
Albedo is a measure of the amount of light reflected back by an object that is incident on it.
So, high albedo means that a greater portion of light falling on something is reflected back. This also ...
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How does CO2 contribute to global warming?
CO2 is a common agent in fire extinguishers, which suppresses fire. How does this same chemical contribute to global warming when it also puts out fires?
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What would it be like to live in an ice age?
If you were born in the most recent ice age, how different would your life be compared to how you live it today? Furthermore, if humans currently lived in an ice age, how would it affect life today?
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Are cattle really contributing to global warming?
Let me be straight up. I'm a physicist, I've no doubt about climate change and the part we play in it. I had been reading about cattle being one of the alleged main causes of climate change.
I get ...
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Is pure "heat" harmful to the environment?
Is heat, dissipated from a hot conductor to the surrounding air harmful to the environment? If it were large-scale would it have any negative eco-effect?
Is a source of heat, considered harmful to ...
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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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Could Global Climate Change increase the average moisture in the air?
Given several hundred years, assuming global climate change results in the melting of the polar ice caps which leads to an increase in surface area of the oceans and an overall warming of the earth (...
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How will the rising ocean affect aquatic life?
On one hand it creates more habitat for oceanic life, on the other hand, it warms up the oceans and mixes the salt and fresh waters.
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Is the impact of carbon emision dependent on the location on the earth?
While I was reading how the EU taxes aviation companies based on carbon emissions it occurred to me that the effect of carbon emissions on global temperature etc. may depend on where the carbon is ...
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What exactly is "Land-Use Change and Forestry"?
What exactly is "Land-Use Change and Forestry" and why is it sometimes hugely positive (Indonesia) but sometimes hugely negative (China)? Isn't it supposed to be a type of source, not sink (...
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North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) future prediction - Academic papers?
I am looking for academic papers which show future predictions of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) by considering climate change and the various emission scenarios. Do you have any suggestions?
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How much could Earth's temperature increase by the time we run out of oil reserves?
According to this article How long will world's oil reserves last?:
At the current rate of extraction oil reserves will last 53 years.
And according to this another article, Global temperature - ...
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Are we now and/or have we been in the RCP8.5 scenario?
Is it generally understood that we (globally) have been living in an RCP8.5 scenario over the past 7-8 years?
Such that a predictive climate model using RCP8.5 assumptions that was run circa 2011 can ...
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Is the Arctic ice dissapearing faster than IPCC models say?
Are observations of Arctic sea ice in accord with what the IPCC forecasts says they should be? And as such is the ice reducing in an exponential or linear way?
For instance, from https://www....
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How is climate change today different than the climate change that ended the ice age(s)?
Someone I know posted a question about climate change that I do not know how to answer. While I do believe (for lack of better word) in climate change, I do not know how to answer this persons ...
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What amount of permafrost carbon release could be expected with the IPCC worse-prediction of a 4.8C temperature rise?
As answered in my earlier question How much methane clathrates are buried in continental deposits?, there is alot of methane trapped in the form of clathrates in continental deposits. Additionally, ...
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Does the amount of energy released from burning of fossil fuels have a measurable impact on global warming? [duplicate]
I understand that the main issue of global warming is greenhouse gases that trap solar energy instead of allowing it to bounce back into space. That being said, I've always had this impression or idea ...
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