The Science of Climate Change: 2nd Edition

By Donald Johnson

Important new evidence about climate change has been uncovered by scientists. They have determined by their research that we have been mistaken in some of our basic ideas.
This book is a narrative. It was written to shed some light on this new evidence and to re-evaluate all of the known evidence on climate change.
The reader is not left alone, an email is provided for reader initiated inquiries with the author.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Dec 13, 2023
• ISBN: 9781304820594

Book preview

Introduction

My interest in climate was first awakened by a rather hopeful prospect. In the fall of 1950, a school notice was passed around in my ninth-grade class announcing a cooperative study that was to include the USA, France, and the USSR, a study that was to begin in the near future.

The International Geophysical Year (IGY) was going to be a study of the Earth’s sciences based on international cooperation. It was announced at a time when us kids were still learning how to duck-and-cover in case of an A-bomb attack. So, I began to feel a bit more optimistic about the future and I also began looking into what the IGY was going to be about.

In 1956, after serving in Korea, I began studying anthropology and climate at UCLA. Soon, stories about the IGY and their Vostok adventures in Antarctica began appearing in the Daily Bruin, the campus newspaper. But my interests were more about the Arctic region; why had the Arctic Ocean frozen over and where in the world had lowered sea levels provided land routes for animal and human migrations.

In this Book

My discussions are narratives, and they are intended to be brief. They are my accounts of a life-long interest in the weather and our climate. Any questions arising from my discussions should be easily satisfied with a little online research, which I encourage. However, a great deal of the research material that is available online requires that you be a cautious researcher.

Be advised, the subjects covered in this book have world-class experts that can easily find issues with which to disagree, especially among themselves. It is my hope that you will examine such reactions with care.

There have been a great many things attributed to climate change by the media over the years, and that’s okay as some of what was said could be true. We know that our climate is changing, it’s just the causes of climate change that seem to have us confused.

In the Discussions

I refer to the heat contained within objects as thermal energy which has both a temperature, measured in degrees, and a volume, which is measured in calories. Sunlight is referred to as solar radiation. I use the term infrared energy in referring to the electromagnetic energy radiating in the Earth’s atmosphere, which has an intensity measured in joules and a density that is measured in pascals, i.e., joules per cubic meter (J/m³).

The term basic temperature refers to a temperature that is baseline for that situation. I use transient heat for heat with a temporary life-span, such as the heat in the atmosphere and at the Earth’s surface, heat that is radiated away into space every night. I use constant heat for any heat that is retained over time such as the heat accruing within the ocean’s depths.

In my discussions, when referring to the Earth’s surface, that surface includes all kinds of objects which will acquire various degrees of heat from incoming solar radiation. Some Earth objects will acquire heat at a higher temperature than others and will re-radiate that heat with its higher intensity, a fact worth keeping in mind as we go forward.

However, I provide no discussion about any heat or other effects from asteroid strikes, sunspots or volcanic eruptions as they are out of the scope of this book.

The predicted dates into the future are only estimates derived from the data of scientists studying the Eemian interglacial period and the Pliocene Epoch.

There are repetitions of some factual details in my discussions which are necessary as each discussion is intended to be somewhat independent of the others. Please take the time necessary to understand each discussion.

If some of my discussions seem to be too condensed, they may require a period of reflection while separating out some of the details. Perhaps some online research or discussions with others would be helpful. You should have a clear grasp of the concepts before continuing.

If you feel that working in small groups with others would be helpful, I would certainly agree. Getting together with some of your friends to review the discussions is a good idea. There is a lot to be discussed and discovered. You may find that others may share your views.

In 2021, some important new scientific evidence was discovered about climate science. I have high hopes that the world’s young people will learn about this new evidence. They above all need to understand that their future is not being lost.

An Inquiry into CO2

The knowledge that we have in science today is based on the efforts of scientists before us. The following is a review of several scientific events that have occurred and should be useful in your understanding of the discussions that follow.

In 1856, Eunice Foote was the first scientist to describe the ability of carbon dioxide (CO2) to absorb heat. Her technical paper describing how sunlight increased the heat in carbon dioxide was presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) by Joseph Henry of the Smithsonian Institution.

In 1903, Svante Arrhenius, a Swedish scientist, received a Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In some of his earlier work, he described a process in which atmospheric CO2, when heated by sunlight’s infrared radiation, behaved in a manner later to be called the greenhouse effect. He originated the idea that increases in atmospheric CO2 might cause global warming.

In the 1980’s, scientists warned the world of a widening hole in the Earth’s ozone layer, a layer in the upper atmosphere that absorbs almost all of the sun's harmful ultraviolet light. The Montreal Protocol of 1987 was an international treaty that stopped that depletion and allowed for recovery of the ozone layer to begin. That resolved a pending world health problem caused by our inexperience with chemicals in our atmosphere.

In 1988, following the Montreal Protocol, the United Nations announced the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was formed because some scientists believed that there were other problems lurking in our atmosphere, problems that could cause the Earth’s temperature to increase, thereby causing an increase in the Earth’s rising sea level.

Dr Bert Bolin, a professor at Stockholm University was a leader among those scientists. He was chosen to be Chairman of the IPCC and was its guiding scientist for the first ten years.

In 1997, after his retirement from the IPCC, Dr Bolin wrote A History of the Science and Politics of Climate Change, which was published in 2007. In his book, Dr Bolin reviewed the work of 19th century scientists such as Joseph Fourier, Claude Pouillet, and others and discussed their studies of the heat imbalance between the Earth’s incoming solar radiation and the Earth’s outgoing radiation. 

Dr Bolin agreed with Svante Arrhenius’ idea that the intensity of the heat acquired from sunlight’s infrared radiation by our increasing volume of atmospheric CO2 can create a greenhouse effect causing the Earth’s temperature to increase.

Dr Bolin’s Theory

The accumulation in the atmosphere of CO2 and certain other gases traps solar radiation near the Earth’s surface, causing global warming. – Our Common Future, page 33, 1987

The above theory that atmospheric CO2 causes global warming, is based on the concept that atmospheric CO2 traps heat from solar radiation. Countries around the world have relied