EARTHSS 15 Lecture Notes - Lecture 20: Distant Relatives, Emission Intensity, International Development
8 Nov 2016
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Document Summary
Difference in climate between a low emissions ( rcp 2. 6) and high emissions ( rcp 8. 5) become large mid century. At 4c: highest tempereatures in 30 million years, sea level of 3 to 6 feet, extreme drought over 40 % of inhabited land, hundreds of millions of refugees, half of known species extinct. Eventually if we burned all fossil fuels, our distant relatives would experience a radically different coastline. 84% of our energy still comes from fossil fuels. Cumulative emissions: total amount of carbon emittd over next 85 years. Units of cumulatve emissions: kg c ( or pg / year : gt/year) Can think of like a carbon budget can splurge soon, save later , or . Warming will be proportional to cumulative co2 emissions. The kaya identity: a way to understand what factors drive co2 emissions. Lets compare predictions for how these 2 terms are expected to changed over nest century, population ( p) vs economy ( g/p)
