BIO220H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Lewis Fry Richardson, Numerical Weather Prediction, Svante Arrhenius
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BIO220H1 Full Course Notes
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Document Summary
Earth has seen many changes in climate: accompanied by drastic shifts in biota. Last ice-free earth about 55 mya (sea levels high) Entered 5th major ice age about 2. 58 mya; cycling between more and less ice. Estimates from ice cores and sediment cores: able to tell the past temperatures of earth. Exit the current interglacial in 10-50 thousand years. Different from short-term prediction: due to human activity. John tyndall (1820-1893: measured how different gases absorbed radiation, discussed greenhouse effect of water vapour. Vilhelm bjerknes (1862-1951: wrote the primitive equations for a model of weather including air movements, temperatures, water content. Lewis fry richardson (1881-1953: used equations to calculate the first numerical weather prediction, predicted weather for 6 hours; calculations took him 6 weeks. Cannot predict local weather far in advance due to its chaotic nature: additional estimation and computing limitations. Climate = statistics of weather: predictable. Compare climate to past records to predict future climate: backward prediction .
