AST 101 Lecture 22: 11_29 Anthropogenic Climate Change
29 Nov 2016
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The anthropocene: the era of human influence on geology. In an eye blink, a drastic jump in atmospheric co2: Evidence that this has the potential to cause far more warming. Who are the sources of co2 emissions (spoiler: us) Venus has a tremendously thick atmosphere and a powerful greenhouse effect. Its atmosphere contains a great deal of co2, which reflects ir strongly. The thermal radiation that would carry heat away from venus can"t get out get out. It is over 400 k hotter than was predicted by the calculation you did last week. Nitrogen doesn"t absorb strongly at any relevant wavelengths. H2o and co2 are strong greenhouse gases, but they are only a bit of the atmosphere. We are about 20 k warmer than predicted by that crude math (more precise math: 30 k) These gases are very important for determining earth"s temperature! Earth has seen quite a lot in its lifetime .
