Earth Science Regents Review Worksbook Part 3 Energy Waer Climate

Module three: Earth'south Climate System

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Module 3: Earth'due south Climate System

Video: Module 3 Introduction (1:xiv)

Module 3 Introduction

Click here for a transcript.

Hullo, students. Welcome to module three on climate models. I grew up in London back in the 1960s, and weather forecasts were always wrong. They would predict a tempest--information technology would be perfectly sunny. They would predict sunny weather, and there would be a storm. They were always wrong. At present we're at a fourth dimension when atmospheric condition prediction is really good, and that is because the reckoner side of the models is very strong and very avant-garde, and we're getting much better at predicting climate in the future as well.

So in this module, you lot'll larn most how CO2 levels and forecasted levels of CO2 drives climate models. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will definitely be related to the temperature in the future, every bit well as the global rainfall in the future, storm tracks, and storm intensity in the time to come, fire forecasts in the future, and sea level rise. And what we're going to larn about in this module is how unlike levels of CO2 that are controlled by homo activity in the hereafter volition definitely be used to predict temperature, rainfall, hurricane intensity, as well equally sea level rise. I remember you're going to learn a lot about this module, how information technology'due south important for your future, and I hope you enjoy it.

Introduction

This form is all about the World's climate. Thus, it is essential that you have a solid agreement of how the climate system works. This module is all about the climate organization. It is by far the almost technical module in the course, and our philosophy is to lay out the scientific discipline in a comprehensive way, equations and all, and then that you lot can encounter that Earth's climate is in part fairly uncomplicated, governed by physical relationships that describe how estrus from the Sunday is exchanged on the surface of the Earth and in its atmosphere. And then, there are some very complex aspects of the Earth'southward climate that we will non devote much time to.

Hither is an example of why this module is of import. The Polar Vortex has become a household name in the US in recent years. In Texas in the winter of 2021, the common cold air from the vortex caused unusually cold temperatures and this crippled the power system that was not built to withstand such temperatures. The power cuts caused anarchy, up to v million people were without power frequently for many days, 12 meg people lost water service due to freezing pipes, and 151 people died as a result of hypothermia and carbon monoxide poisoning.

Video: Deep freeze in Texas: Millions without power, 21 dead in historic snowstorms (2:54)

Those of u.s.a. on the East Declension and Midwest of the U.s. and our neighbors in Canada, 187 million people in all, lived through an extremely cold week at the beginning of 2014. Air temperatures without the windchill factored in, reached -35^oC in eastern Montana, Due south Dakota, and Minnesota. This cold was a result of the southward expansion of the polar vortex, a whirlwind of cold dumbo air that is normally restricted to the expanse around the poles. Understanding the polar vortex, and how it became unstable and swept beyond the Midwest and eastern parts of Canada and Us, is key to interpreting the significance of the extreme common cold in early 2014. Without this agreement, you might think that the expansion of cold air is a sign of cooling climate. However, information technology is probable that the reverse is the example; the recent cold snap is actually a event of warming. This is how it works. As you will larn in this module, the northern high latitudes are warming more apace than the rest of the earth as a result of melting sea ice. You will too learn that such warming leads to diminished wind velocities, including the polar vortex. Every bit the vortex weakens, it becomes less stable and begins to wobble and stray from the region around the N Pole. It turns out that the recent cold snap was merely 1 of these wobble events, and the projections are for polar vortices to go more common over North America in the future, just as other extreme events similar extratropical hurricanes such as Sandy, heat waves and droughts become more frequent.

Maps prove the 500-millibar geopotential height (the altitude where the air pressure is 500 millibars) on January five, 2014 (left), and in mid-November 2013 (right). The common cold air of the polar vortex is majestic

Credit: Maps provided by the NOAA/OAR/ESRL PSL, Boulder, Colorado, USA, from their Web site; based on NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis information. Reviewed by James Overland, NOAA PMEL.

Now right off the bat, we demand to brand it clear that the "unproblematic" relationships are often portrayed in the module in terms of equations. You do not need to be a Math major to sympathize these equations, nor practise nosotros want you to memorize them. The point of showing the equations is not to cause smashing anxiety, but to provide an understanding of the human relationship between ii variables. For instance, you should be looking to distinguish relationships that are linear (such as a=b*10 [where * is multiplied by]) from those that are quadratic (such every bit a=bx²). This is the level at which we look you to understand equations. One last word, the lab for this module is designed to strengthen the fundamentals yous acquire in the reading. By experimenting with climate in the lab, you should come abroad with a really solid agreement of the climate system.

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Source: https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth103/node/517

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