PART I
Intro to Key Concepts and Ideas
[1] Viewing Weather as the Expression of Climate
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/104/9/BAMS-D-23-0154.1.xml
[2] What even is “climate”?
https://gc.copernicus.org/preprints/gc-2018-11
[3] What Is Climate Change?
https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/what-is-climate-change
[4] Special Report: Global Warming of 1.5 ºCCH – Framing and Context
https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/chapter-1
[5] Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years (2006)
https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/11676/chapter/5
[6] Joint NASA, NOAA Study Finds Earth’s Energy Imbalance Has Doubled (2021)
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/langley/joint-nasa-noaa-study-finds-earths-energy-imbalance-has-doubled
[7] Is the Sun causing global warming?
https://climate.nasa.gov/faq/14/is-the-sun-causing-global-warming
[8] On the causal structure between CO2 and global temperature (2016)
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep21691
[9] Climate and Earth’s Energy Budget
[10] What is the greenhouse effect?
https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/faq/what-is-the-greenhouse-effect
[11] How do we know the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is caused by humans?
[12] A perspective on climate change from Earth’s energy imbalance (2022)
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2752-5295/ac6f74
With Key Concepts and Ideas defined, let’s look at some numbers.
[13] Climate Change Indicators: U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions
[14.1] Calculating the amount of octane atoms in a gallon of pure gasoline:
1 gallon is equivalent to 3.785 liters.
The density of gasoline is 0.7429 grams per milliliter @ 15°C.
The molar mass of octane (C8H18) is 114 grams per mole.1
1 gallon of octane = (3.785L) (1000ml/1L) (0.7429g octane/ml) (mol/114g octane) = 24.67 mol octane
[14.2] Calculating the mass of CO2 produced in the combustion of 1 gallon of pure octane:
Chemical reaction formula for the combustion of octane: 2C8H18+25O2→16CO2+18H2O.
The molar ratio is thus 8CO2 molecules to 1 octane molecule.
The molar mass of CO2 is 44.01 grams per mole.
(24.67mol C8H18) (16mol CO2/2mol C8H18) (44.01g CO2 /mol) = 8,686g or 19.1lbs CO2
[14.3] Calculating US annual emissions in units of Salesforce Towers:
1 metric ton (“tonne”) is equivalent to 1,000,000 grams.
The volume of Salesforce Tower was approximated using its published total height of 1070ft and base side width of 172ft; these dimensions were used to calculate each story as a rectangular subsection decreasing in area from the 40th story upwards to an estimated area of 8,700 sq. ft. at the top.
5.05 billion metric tons (bmt) = (5.05×109 metric tons) (106g/tonne) (1gal/8,686g CO2) (0.133681 ft3/1gal)(1 Salesforce Tower/1.3×106 ft3) = 59,785 SFTs per year or approx. 163 per day
[15] Historical GHG Emissions
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/inventory-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions-and-sinks
[16] Understanding Global Warming Potentials
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/understanding-global-warming-potentials
[17] Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator
https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator
[18.1] Calculating crude oil CO2 equivalency:
The average heat content of crude oil is 5.80 mmbtu/barrel
The average carbon coefficient of crude oil is 20.31 kg C/mmbtu
The ratio of the molecular weight of CO2 to that of carbon is 44 kg CO2/12 kg
(5.80 mmbtu/barrel)(20.31 kg C/mmbtu)(44 kg CO2/12 kg C)(1 metric ton/1,000 kg) = 0.43 metric tons CO2/barrel
[18.2] Calculating US annual GHG emissions in units of crude oil combustion:
(6.343×109 tonnes of CO2e) (1 barrel/0.43 tonnes CO2)(5.614 ft3/barrel)(1 Salesforce Tower/1.3×106 ft3) = 63,702 SFTs per year or approx. 174 per day
The formal equation for calculating CO2e is:
Where,
CO2e = carbon dioxide equivalent, metric tons/year
GHGi = mass emissions of each greenhouse gas in metric tons per year
GWPi = global warming potential for each greenhouse gas
n = the number of greenhouse gases emitted
[19] Carbon dioxide emissions of the most polluting countries worldwide in 2010 and 2022
https://www.statista.com/statistics/270499/co2-emissions-in-selected-countries
Now let’s add some historical context to our numbers.
[20] Global Carbon Budget 2022 (2022)
https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/14/4811/2022
[21] CO2 emissions
https://www.iea.org/reports/global-energy-review-2021/co2-emissions
[22] Global Carbon
https://www.fs.usda.gov/ccrc/topics/global-carbon
Note: A common cause for confusion exists in how CO2 emissions are recorded and reported: the atomic mass of carbon versus the mass of one CO2molecule. The equivalency between them is simple but it is important to look at the specific value when researching global emissions data.
[For reference] A factor of 3.67 makes a big difference when discussing climate
https://grist.org/article/the-biggest-source-of-mistakes-carbon-vs-carbon-dioxide
[23] Climate Change: Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide
[24] CO2 emissions need to be reduced twice as fast as the rate they have gone up since 1990
[Figure 1] An apparent hiatus in global warming?
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2013EF000165
Ok, so what’s the point?
[25] Climate Sensitivity
[26] Climate Change Indicators: Climate Forcing
[Figure 2] Atmospheric Transmission
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Atmospheric_Transmission.png
[27] Beyond Forcing Scenarios: Predicting Climate Change through Response Operators in a Coupled General Circulation Model
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7250835/#CR2
[Figure 3] Representative Concentration Pathway
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_Concentration_Pathway
[Figure 4] An Assessment of Earth’s Climate Sensitivity Using Multiple Lines of Evidence
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019RG000678
[28] Explainer: The high-emissions ‘RCP8.5’ global warming scenario
https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-the-high-emissions-rcp8-5-global-warming-scenario
[29] Attribution of the present-day total greenhouse effect
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2010JD014287
[30] Steamy Relationships: How Atmospheric Water Vapor Amplifies Earth’s Greenhouse Effect
[31] ppmv
https://hogback.atmos.colostate.edu/group/dave/pdf
[32] The Tipping Points of Climate Change: How Will Our World Change?
[33] Maximum warming occurs about one decade after a carbon dioxide emission
Putting things in perspective
[34] Glacial cooling and climate sensitivity revisited
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2617-x
[35] Technical Note: Past and future warming – direct comparison on multi-century timescales
https://cp.copernicus.org/articles/18/911/2022/#fn_Ch1.Footn1
[Figure 5] Technical Note: Past and future warming – direct comparison on multi-century timescales
https://cp.copernicus.org/articles/18/911/2022/#fn_Ch1.Footn1
[36] Global vegetation patterns of the past 140,000 years
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jbi.13930
[Figure 6] Global vegetation patterns of the past 140,000 years
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jbi.13930
[37] You Asked: Dinosaurs Survived When CO2 Was Extremely High. Why Can’t Humans?
[Figure 7] What’s the hottest Earth’s ever been?
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/whats-hottest-earths-ever-been
The obvious question: Should climate change be taken seriously?
RWC #1: Unbearable Temperatures will leave Major Population Centers Uninhabitable
[39] What is the heat index?
https://www.weather.gov/ama/heatindex
[40] An adaptability limit to climate change due to heat stress
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0913352107
[Figure 8] What is the heat index?
https://www.weather.gov/ama/heatindex
[41] Heat index extremes increasing several times faster than the air temperature
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ad3144
[42] A physiological approach for assessing human survivability and liveability to heat in a changing climate
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-43121-5
[43] The unprecedented Pacific Northwest heatwave of June 2021
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-36289-3
RWC #2: Droughts will become Longer, More Intense, and Affect Entire Continents
[44] Climate change and the aridification of North America
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2006323117
[45] Why extreme rain pouring into Southwest US hasn’t fully eliminated the region’s megadrought
[46] Lower Basin Proposal Adopted By Federal Government Stabilizes Colorado River System Through 2026
[47] Emergency measures needed to rescue Great Salt Lake from ongoing collapse
https://pws.byu.edu/great-salt-lake
[48] NOAA Drought Task Force Report on the 2020–2021 Southwestern U.S. Drought
https://www.drought.gov/documents/noaa-drought-task-force-report-2020-2021-southwestern-us-drought
[49] Warming-induced vapor pressure deficit suppression of vegetation growth diminished in northern peatlands
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-42932-w
[50] Projected U.S. drought extremes through the twenty-first century with vapor pressure deficit
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-12516-7
[51] Increasing prevalence of hot drought across western North America since the 16th century
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adj4289
[52] Climate change will accelerate the high-end risk of compound drought and heatwave events
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2219825120
[53] Future socio-ecosystem productivity threatened by compound drought–heatwave events
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-022-01024-1
RWC #3: Extreme Weather and Accelerating Sea Level Rise
[54] Climate change is probably increasing the intensity of tropical cyclones
[55] The growing inadequacy of an open-ended Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale in a warming world
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2308901121
[56] Declining tropical cyclone frequency under global warming
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01388-4
[57] Antarctica’s biggest recorded heatwave fully deciphered
[58] Sea-level rise due to polar ice-sheet mass loss during past warm periods
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aaa4019
[59] Greenland ice sheet climate disequilibrium and committed sea-level rise
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01441-2
[60] New high-end estimate of sea-level rise projections in 2100 and 2300
https://www.wcrp-climate.org/news/science-highlights/1955-new-sea-level-projections-2022
[61] Future Coastal Population Growth and Exposure to Sea-Level Rise and Coastal Flooding – A Global Assessment
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0118571
[62] Global climate change and local land subsidence exacerbate inundation risk to the San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aap9234
[63] Sea Level Rise in California
https://www.ppic.org/publication/sea-level-rise-in-california
RWC #4: Starvation, Mass Migration, and the Rise of Authoritarian Regimes
[64] Climate Endgame: Exploring catastrophic climate change scenarios
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2108146119
[65] Future warming increases probability of globally synchronized maize production shocks
https://www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10.1073/pnas.1718031115
[66] Amplified Rossby waves enhance risk of concurrent heatwaves in major breadbasket regions
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-019-0637-z
[67] Projected increase in summer heat-dome-like stationary waves over Northwestern North America
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-023-00511-2
[68] Future of the human climate niche
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1910114117
RCW#5: Mass Extinctions and Ecosystem Collapse
[69] Reassessment of the risks of climate change for terrestrial ecosystems
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-024-02333-8
[70] Plant responses to changing rainfall frequency and intensity
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-024-00534-0
[71] The 2020 to 2021 California megafires and their impacts on wildlife habitat
[72] Irreversible loss in marine ecosystem habitability after a temperature overshoot
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-023-01002-1
[73] Understanding Ocean Acidification
One last look
[74] Historical and projected future range sizes of the world’s mammals, birds, and amphibians
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19455-9
PART II
Achieving the Unprecedented
[75] Exxon Knew about Climate Change almost 40 years ago
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-climate-change-almost-40-years-ago
[76] Emissions must peak by 2025 to prevent disastrous climate change effects, according to new UN climate report
[77] Large potential reduction in economic damages under UN mitigation targets
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0071-9
[78] How Electrifying Everything Became a Key Climate Solution
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/04/14/climate/electric-car-heater-everything.html
[79] China added more solar panels in 2023 than US did in its entire history
Rethinking Environmentalism
[80] Report: Health Costs from Climate Change and Fossil Fuel Pollution Tops $820 Billion a Year
Reasons for Hope
[81] The nuclear fusion era has arrived, if we choose it
https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/nuclear-fusion-era-arrived
[82] YPCCC’s Resources on Climate in the 2024 U.S. General Election