ESCI 1012 Lecture Notes - Lecture 23: Background Radiation, Anthropocene, Industrial Revolution
Document Summary
Atmosphere conditions in time, or over short term (days, weeks, months) Is the weather of an area or region averaged over longer time intervals (decades, centuries) Climate is not fixed, change is certain. Some say we are in the anthropocene: humans having the most impact on earth. I(cid:290) so(cid:289)e (cid:363)ays, (cid:363)e are still i(cid:290) the (cid:909)ice ages(cid:910) of any other organism, we have been affecting the earth rather dramatically to when we first have domesticated animals. Only questions are what changes will occur, and whether those changes are largely natural or human induced. Humans now move more earth than all natural processes combined greater than an order of magnitude. In past, volcanism was one of the main impacts on climate system. Gases are selective absorbers of radiation so composition of atmosphere affects both the radiatio(cid:290) that reaches the earth(cid:910)s surface, and the radiation emitted by the earth. Changing convection patterns, greenhouse effect changing amount of infrared energy.
