Clyde Burnett, Peak to Peak. We are now finally becoming aware of the chapter of climate change with extreme weather, floods, and damaging winds. It has occasioned political and social discussions like Climate Action of needs to understand and respond. This story began centuries ago when humans and our life supporting plants and animals began to evolve to the stable climate of Earth’s infrared radiation response to the energy balance of solar radiation. (See last month’s column.)  And 30 years ago, James Hansen announced that we were in the chapter of global warming. It’s time for us to recognize that we have begun our belated recognition of Earth’s response to the global warming that we have initiated. This is the final obvious chapter of the story of climate change. 

Today I will remind you again of the basic science of that beginning chapter of global warming. Our planet’s energy balance with radiation from the Sun requires Earth’s heat radiation to have a maximum in the infrared at a wavelength of about 10 microns with radiation temperature of 255 K (-18 C). But to have that attractive ground temperature of 15 C, our atmospheric must trap Earth’s outgoing 10 micron infrared radiation with absorption by trace species of methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), and water vapor (H2O).   (See photo).

Most of that absorption is by the large amount of atmospheric water vapor caused by evaporation from the oceans on 70% of the Earth’s surface. But the other trace species have some control of the amount of evaporation by their slight additional trapping and warming of the oceans. It is the nearly 50% increase of CO2 by burning of fossil fuels that has produced the global warming of nearly 1 C during the last 50-100 years. (Penn State’s Professor Alley has called CO2 the control knob of the thermostat of thermal heating by H2O.)

A nasty feature of this global warming by CO2 is that its atmospheric lifetime is many centuries! (A different example of atmospheric lifetime is that of CFC which delays the recovery of Antarctic ozone for 50 years or so.)  And that huge reservoir of warm ocean water is an additional delayed cooling of the atmosphere.

It is this science of global warming that is responsible for the chapter of Earth’s dangerous response. Our efforts in the mitigation of global warming have done nothing to diminish the CO2 emission from burning of fossil fuels, and the increased renewable power of solar and wind in this past 30 years has done little to limit the increased warming from greenhouse trapping. We have only begun the unpleasant adaptation to Earth’s response.

Our most recent political response has been the support of power from fossil fuels and reversal of steps toward control of greenhouse gas emissions. We have continued the growth of the long lifetime reservoir of the heat trapping CO2 and the heat reservoir of the ocean source of evaporated H2O. These sources of our newly recognized evidence of climate change are irreversible in our lifetime.  

Those who continue to deny the evidence of the science or to minimize the problems of future adaptation are jeopardizing our descendants’ lives and even our immediate environment. We must resume mitigation efforts to avoid future extremely adverse civilization damage. I would hope that if we could become a leader in dealing with the climate change problems that affect the entire planet, we might hope for a more general appreciation and friendship from the Middle East and other parts of the world.

(Originally published in the March 5, 2020, print edition of The Mountain-Ear.)