EAS 1540 Lecture Notes - Lecture 19: Hockey Stick, Water Vapor, Sea Lion

• School: Cornell University
• Department: Earth & Atmospheric Sciences
• Course: EAS 1540
• Professor: Bruce Monger

Document Summary

Lec 19 - fri 11/4 - climate change i: professor charles. 2 largest components that absorbs outward electromagnetic radiation. Goldilocks rule: venus has too much, mars has too little, earth has what"s just right. Venus: high temp --> bc of greenhouse concentrations of gases in their atmospheres. Current co2 concentration: 400ppm - exceeds natural range over the past 650,000 years. People say we will never go below 400ppm again; presenter believes that we can. We can go back and look at ice core data, recreate climate system in the past. Graph: reconstructions of co2 levels, air bubbles that are in the ice. Co2 high, methane high - warmer, interglacial period. Co2 low, methane low - glacial period/ice age. But today"s co2 concentrations exceed everything from the past. Mid 19th century - started to see a dramatic rise in temperature. Temperatures were pretty constant for a long time. Used proxy records (tree rings, etc) to get past data.