NATS 1760 Lecture Notes - Whole Earth Review, Nuclear Arms Race, Ceteris Paribus

• School: York University
• Department: Natural Science
• Course: NATS 1760
• Professor: Darrin Durant

Document Summary

Climate change 1: what"s at issue; the history. Review 3 main themes of course: public vs. experts, risk, doubt and certainty- who to trust. Difference between greenhouse effect, global warming and climate change. Greenhouse gases( not just co2: ch4, h2o vapor, hfc s: methane- biggest danger to atmosphere. Geophysics( interdisciplinary; complex; unlike high school science; hard to falsify: from ocean to top of the world . Feedback( negative and positive: negative feedback(way of maintaining a temperature at a stable level, positive feedback (leads to an unstable system, characterize our views on nature, climate change etc. Albedo( why wear white in summer: reflectiveness of materials. As a dam built across a river causes a local deepening of the stream, so our atmosphere, throws as a barrier across the terrestrial [infrared] rays, produces a local heightening of the temperature of the earth s surface. (john tyndall) Stuff that bounces off the earth get trapped in the atmosphere, atoms vibrate= heat.