PUP-4203 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Mount Pinatubo, Permafrost, Crop Yield
Document Summary
Concepts: greenhouse gas (ghg), global warming potenial (gwp), sources of ghg emissions, climate change impacts. What evidence is there that there is a greenhouse efect. The greenhouse efect- idea that when there is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere the earth will warm on average. If we didn"t have a greenhouse efect, the earth would be freezing. Carbon dioxide- primary source is from burning fossil fuels. The fossil fuels we burn comes from dead liqueied plants and dinosaurs. Ch4: methane: highly lammable, we can burn methane. Nitrous oxide: important nitrogen cycle that deals with the nutrious of plants that get cycled through the earth. Water vapor: clouds are largest source of greenhouse gases. The amount of water on the earth is ixed. Global warming potenial- standard metric we use to compare potency of diferent greenhouse gases. Global warming potenial of diferent compounds. methane traps 21 imes more heat per molecule than carbon dioxide.
