Questions tagged [climate-change]
Questions about changes of the climate system, including questions about global warming.
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How will climate change affect the latitudinal distribution of precipitation over each latitudinal region?
In other words... How will it affect precipitation in the tropics? The mid-latitudes? And the polar latitudes?
I'm interested in both the mean and variance of the precipitation.
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Is cutting down boreal forest good or bad for our climate?
I read in the latest IPCC report that felling trees growing in Northern areas lays bare snow cover that, since it's white, reflects sun rays so it's kinda good (or at least, has a substantial positive ...
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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 ...
user11318
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What is the "global mean surface temperature change estimate" an estimate of?
NASA publishes what it calls an "estimate" of the Earth's global mean surface temperature. Digging through papers I've been able to find some documentation of how these numbers are computed, but I ...
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How much of Earth's surface would be covered by water if all ice melted? [duplicate]
I'm trying to find how much water would be on the surface of Earth and how much surface would it cover (how much land will remain) if all the ice at the North and South Poles (and everywhere else) ...
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Relationship between obliquity, antarctic circumpolar current, and atmospheric $\ce{CO2}$
Hannah's text on the biology of climate change appears to suggest that forcing due to changes in obliquity can act in opposite ways in Antarctic waters. On one hand,
"Low obliquity brings cool ...
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How much of Earth's forested land is currently protected from logging/deforestation?
Deforestation is an ongoing global problem. From this National Geographic webpage:
The quickest solution to deforestation would be to simply stop cutting down trees. [However], financial realities ...
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Is global warming occuring only because of humans? [duplicate]
I learned that human activities produce gases that deplete the ozone layer, and create the greenhouse layer, which increases the world's temperature. (And seems real , now in Thailand it's 35 degree ...
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Could pumping ocean water into desert areas help reduce sea level rise?
I have been reading the discussion about pumping sea water into the desert for purposes of irrigation and changing the dry climate of that area, but what about to just purely offset the rising sea ...
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Looking for evidence against some points raised in Ivar Giaever's speech on climate change
I just listened to Ivar Giaever's speech on the climate change, and he raised following points which seem significant to me:
Temperature differences y/y are very small compared to natural
variation ...
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Is the Unified Theory of Climate (Nikolov & Zeller) compatible with the AGW/GHG theory in any respect?
Nikolov & Zeller have published a paper concerning what they call The Unified Theory of Climate.
https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/New-Insights-on-the-Physical-Nature-of-the-Atmospheric-...
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What is the difference between climate change and global warming?
1. Question:
In the article, Global Warming vs. Climate Change is an example of the confusion regarding these terms.
What are the "official" definitions of "Climate Change" and "Global Warming"?
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Can ice caps reform if they disappear?
Excuse my ignorance. I'm under the impression that there are various types of ice at the poles, but I don't know the difference or the significance of each type, so, in terms of whatever is actually ...
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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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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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Would ultra-efficient carbon sequestrion produce immediate results in global temperatures?
So, imagine a new technology were introduced that was incredibly efficient at carbon sequestration, lets say removal of ~90% of carbon in processed air and processing 10 tons of gas per minute (these ...
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The seriousness of global warming/ climate change? [closed]
Why is such an emphasis placed on sea level rise?? As this can be devastating in itself, it can be looked at as a great economic opportunity to put people to work preparing our coastal areas for the ...
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Equations for Milankovitch Factors?
Are there equations for the radiative forcings of the three Milankovitch factors at any given time? Or a database of values?
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When is the next glaciation due?
Let's say we invented a whizzy technology that took CO2 back to pre-industrial levels, say 280ppm, how long would it take for glaciation to resume ?
(I'm not angling for a denialist perspective here, ...
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Is non-randomly-sampled historical data representative?
I'm a global warming skeptic, and one of my concerns is the accuracy of historical global temperatures. Since these temperatures weren't sampled at random locations or gridded points, can they be ...
user967
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Global warming cycles
Everyone is saying we are in a global warming, an unnatural one at that because of CO2.
Has there ever been a 'global warming' in Earth's history? I know that global cooling is cyclical and 'looks' ...
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How to explain the remarkable regularity of the increased concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide?
The Keeling curve is very well approximated with an exponential function with an offset $256$ [ppm]
$$256+A\cdot e^{\alpha\cdot t}$$
where $A=1.095\cdot10^{-12}$ and $\alpha=0.0161$ ($t$ is in years ...
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Do perfumes and deodorants contribute to global warming?
If perfumes and deodorants cause air pollution, does that mean they also heat the planet?
user22619
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Why is carbon dioxide a more important greenhouse gas than nitrous oxide?
I admit that this is not a genuinely earth sience question, but since there is no stack exchange site genuinely devoted to general ecology, I dare to ask it here:
From a table in the German Wikipedia ...
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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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Rate of climate change with and without humans?
I was watching this interview of Bill Nye on Fox News. Bill claimed that the earth's climate is never in equilibrium, but human activity has caused the gradient to be much higher than it would've been ...
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How much would weather data from ocean-going vessels improve climate research?
I would like to know how good the weather data coverage is on the surface of the world’s oceans, and how much it would improve climate research/models if weather observations from ocean-going vessels ...
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What effect does climate change have on the Earth's rotation?
I recently read a blog entry from a leap-second expert explaining that in near term (i.e. last 3 years) the Earth has been spinning ever so slightly faster, delaying the need to insert a leap-second (...
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Is lower tropospheric temperature relevant to measure global warming?
So according to this,
Global temperature update
Last month, the lower tropospheric temperature dropped 0.28 $\sf^\circ$C from February to March, which seems like a huge drop even if it's due to ...
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Why the $\delta \, ^{18}\text{O}$ in foraminifera shells decrease with temperature even if the oceanic $\delta \, ^{18}\text{O}$ stay constant?
I understand why foram shells contain more $^{18}\text{O}$ when there are ice sheets present, since $^{16}\text{O}$ evaporates more readily and gets trapped in the ice, increasing the relative ...
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Do "aerosol shields" protect big emitters from the impact of their own GHGs?
Green house gases typically have higher lifetimes than aerosols and their precursors (e.g. SO2) so, as I understand it, GHGs usually spread more or less evenly across continents, no matter where they ...
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Will global warming expand the tropical zone
It is widely known (to the general audience, I'm not a climatologist) that global warming will let the desert climates migrate further away from the equator towards the poles, such that the South of ...
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If US emissions went to zero how long until global emissions reach current levels
Given the current global CO2 emission trends, if the US overnight magically went to zero emissions (without affecting worldwide emissions), how many years until global CO2 emissions return to exactly ...
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Why does climate change generate desertification?
According to IPCC:
Climate change can be a significant driver of desertification and land
degradation and can affect food production, thereby, influencing food
security.
Source: IPCC
My ...
user18590
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Why are most effects of the predicted climate change negative?
Most of the commonly mentioned effects of the ongoing and predicted climate change are negative: more extreme weather effects, more destructive weather, more diseases, rapid extinctions, etc.
Why is ...
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What regions of the US will have *improved* climate given current predictions of climate change?
This is really a two part question:
1) Is there a good model for mapping climate conditions in a particular location to pleasantness or livability or something like that?
2) If there is such a model,...
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Are greenhouse effect and ozone depletion correlated?
I have read that these phenomena do not have an interaction.
However, I would think if CFCs cause the ozone layer to thin, and more UV radiation enters the Earth system, the Greenhouse Effect would ...
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Does the extension of the absorption line of $\text{CO}_2$ with temperature play a role in the climate change?
I've read not long ago that the absorption line of the $\text{CO}_2$ becomes larger with temperature thanks to Doppler effect (if it's false it would be great to tell me). My question is the following:...
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How does water vapor cool the troposphere?
I have read about the Fixed Anvil Temperature (FAT) hypothesis and wonder why radiative cooling decreases with decreasing water vapor mixing ratio.
Doesn't this stand in contrast with the fact, that ...
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How does agriculture release so much greenhouse gas?
I recently came over some numbers of GHGs released per energy in food produced, and the result is pretty flooring. I can see how animal-based food production is quite inefficient so let's ignore that ...
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Are there any consequences to carbon capture and storage that also sequesters oxygen?
A big argument for carbon capture and storage is true reversal; while switching to renewable energy and eliminating CO2 emissions is a must, it will not reverse the massive movement of carbon from ...
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Are 'Return Periods' being recalculated? If so, how?
The concept of 'return period' (= 'average recurrence interval', or ARI) is widely used in hydrology, and to a much lesser extent in geology, geomorphology, geophysics, etc. Whatever the application, ...
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Do higher global temperatures increase volcanic activity and earthquakes?
I've read that when global temperature increases significantly, liquid magma can make it's way closer to the surface of earth, causing increased volcanic activity and earthquakes. Is there scientific ...
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Simulating snow melt inundation in urban areas
I am trying to understand how melt water from snow in urban setting gets routed.
I understand that for routing rain water, one can create grid and then determine the flow direction for each cell by ...
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Carbon emission from estuaries
I've heard that estuaries like Chesapeake Bay produce a lot of methane during anoxic conditions. Is there a chance of these estuaries emitting significant amounts of CH4 in the future (because of the ...
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Is there scientific consensus on the existence of the iris effect
Question:
Is there scientific consensus on the existence of the Iris Effect and whether it is a positive or negative feedback mechanism? If so, can you refer to a recent publication?
Background:
In ...
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Dynamic of glacier retreat? (here: in Greenland)
During the last years I have taken many pictures of obviously retreating glaciers and empty moraines in Greenland - just like this one. Looks devastating, actually.
In my understanding, the current ...
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What is the radiative forcing change associated with the Chinese 2020 COVID lockdown, and how does this affect the circulation?
The lockdown imposed in China and other countries in response to the COVID 19 pandemic has resulted in a dramatic change in air quality. Factories and transport systems have shut or continue at ...
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Climate modelling: statistical downscaling or dynamical?
I would like to assess climate change impacts on Protected Areas (e.g. natural reserves, national parks) for Mediterranean countries. I found easily future data from several Global Circulation Models ...
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