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Lecture 1

1) Climate is typically characterized by averages of the climate system over periods of a month or more, taking into account variability in factors like temperature over time. 2) Temperature is the parameter most associated with climate and its changes can impact other variables like sea level and precipitation. Extreme temperatures also affect climate. 3) The greenhouse effect occurs because certain gases in the atmosphere like water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane absorb and emit thermal infrared radiation emitted from the Earth's surface, warming the lower atmosphere and surface.

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15 views

Lecture 1

1) Climate is typically characterized by averages of the climate system over periods of a month or more, taking into account variability in factors like temperature over time. 2) Temperature is the parameter most associated with climate and its changes can impact other variables like sea level and precipitation. Extreme temperatures also affect climate. 3) The greenhouse effect occurs because certain gases in the atmosphere like water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane absorb and emit thermal infrared radiation emitted from the Earth's surface, warming the lower atmosphere and surface.

Uploaded by

shancy shaji
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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CLIMATE CHANGE AND GREENHOUSE EFFECT:

A GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Fulvio BOANO
Politecnico di Torino
Dept. of Environment, Land and Infrastructure Engineering
1
The Climate System

2
What is climate
American Meteorological Society

The slowly varying aspect of the atmosphere-hydrosphere-land surface system. It


is typically characterized in terms of suitable averages of the climate system over
periods of a month or more, taking into consideration the variability in time of
these averaged quantities.

Mark Twain (attributed)

Climate is what you expect; weather is what you get.

3
What is climate
Temperature is the parameter most often associated with
climate.

We mainly focus on temperature for two reasons:


1) the most direct impact of addition of greenhouse
gases is on temperature. Changes in other variables
(e.g., sea level, precipitation…) arise as a response to
temperature changes.

2) we have more data about temperature.

The statistics that most frequently get discussed is average


temperature, but extreme temperatures also matter.

4
Radiation
Stefan-Boltzmann equation (radiation emitted by black bodies  stars):
4
𝑆 𝑒= 𝜎 𝑇

Se is the emitted radiation flux (or irradiance) [W m-2], is Stefan-Boltzmann constant (=5.67
10-8 W m-2 K-4) and T is temperature [K]

Solar radiation to Earth


Ts = 5796 K𝑆
𝑆𝑢𝑛 =6.4 ∙ 10W7
m-2 Emitted radiation flux at Sun surface
RSun~0.71x106 km
RSun~0.71x106 km REarth~6.37x103 km
REarth~6.37x103 km
6
𝑅 𝑆𝑢𝑛 ≈ 0 , 7 ∙ 10 km
6
𝑑 𝑆𝑢𝑛 − 𝐸𝑎𝑟𝑡h ≈ 150 ∙ 10 km
Sun-Earth ~ 150x106 km
Sun-Earth ~ 150x106 km

2
4 𝜋 𝑅𝑠 Radiation flux reaching the outer atmosphere
𝑆 0= 𝑆 𝑠𝑢𝑛 ∙ 2
=1365W m-2
4𝜋𝑑 𝑆−𝐸 (solar constant)
5
Albedo
Albedo is the fraction of reflected radiation.
Main contributions: clouds, snow-covered soil. Very low for water.

Average albedo of the Earth is


around 0.3 (mainly for clouds)

6
A simple energy balance
−2
𝑆 0 ≈1365 𝑊 𝑚 𝐸 𝑒= 𝜀 ∙ 𝜎 𝑇
4

Emissivity ≤1
(deviation from black body)

𝑆 0 (1 − 𝛼 ) ∙ ( 𝜋 𝑅 2) = 𝜎 𝑇 4 ∙ ( 4 𝜋 𝑅2 )

Reduction for albedo α Different areas (1:4)

7
A simple energy balance
−2
𝑆 0 ≈1365 𝑊 𝑚 𝐸 𝑒= 𝜀 ∙ 𝜎 𝑇
4

Emissivity ≤1
(deviation from black body)

𝑆 0 (1 − 𝛼 ) ∙ ( 𝜋 𝑅 2) = 𝜎 𝑇 4 ∙ ( 4 𝜋 𝑅2 )

(-18°C) !
With albedo coefficient   0.3 one obtains

The real Earth temperature is T = 288 K (15°C)  NEED TO ACCOUNT FOR THE ATMOSPHERE !!!

8
Greenhouse effect

9
10
Absorption by the main GHGs

11
12
Spectrum of Outgoing Longwave Radiation (OLR)
Wavelength (µm)
20 10 5

13
Small amounts of GHGs matter!
Greenhouse gases

Concentration:
CO2 400 ppm
CH4 1.8 ppm
14
Equivalence between GHGs

15

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