POSOH – ForCLIMATE
Research “Retreat!”
Jun 2013
Prof. Ankur Desai
University of Wisconsin-Madison
• FORest and Climate Leaders In
Menominee and The Environment!
Where are we?
Three Big Ideas
• Our burning of almost 10 billion tons of carbon in
fossil fuels every year allows us to support a world
with 7 billion people
Three Big Ideas
• Our burning of almost 10 billion tons of carbon in
fossil fuels every year allows us to support a world
with 7 billion people
• However, this act is changing the climate by 3-9
degrees F through doubling or tripling greenhouse
gases in the air such as carbon dioxide
Three Big Ideas
• Our burning of almost 10 billion tons of carbon in
fossil fuels every year allows us to support a world
with 7 billion people
• However, this act is changing the climate by 3-9
degrees F through doubling or tripling greenhouse
gases in the air such as carbon dioxide
• Ecosystems and its constituents play a big and
complicated role through the global carbon cycle and
currently absorb half of our fossil fuel emissions
The Plan
• Introductions
• Schedule and Logistics
• Big Ideas!
Introductions
• Name
• Where are you from?
• What do you do/what year are you in
school?
• What did you want to be when you were
10?
• What will you be doing 10 years from
now?
Logistics
• Goal is to provide exposure to research
methods in global change science and
ecosystem ecology
• We will study atmosphere, soils, lakes,
and vegetation
• Be prepared for field conditions (bugs,
rain)!
• Food! Sleeping! Fun!
Schedule
• Weekend 1
– Friday
• Welcome / Team Building
• Dinner!
• Bonfire
– Saturday
• Morning: Activity block 1
• Afternoon: Activity block 2
• Evening: Dinner out + Medicine Wheel teachings
– Sunday
• Morning: Activity block 3
• Afternoon: Activity block 4
• Evening: Dinner out + Climate change policy discussion
– Monday
• Reflections
• Lunch and clean up
Activity blocks
• Here at Kemp:
– Lakes
– Satellites and meteorology
• At Willow Creek:
– Soils
– Vegetation and carbon
• What makes our current era unique?
• What will we be remembered for 1,000
years from now?
Three Big Ideas
• Our burning of almost 10 billion tons of carbon in
fossil fuels every year allows us to support a world
with 7 billion people
If the World were
100 PEOPLE:
50 would be female
50 would be male
26 would be children
There would be 74 adults,
8 of whom would be 65 and
older
There would be:
60 Asians
15 Africans
14 people from the Americas
11 Europeans
There would be
33 Christians
22 Muslims
14 Hindus
7 Buddhists
12 people who practice other
religions
12 people who would not be
aligned with a religion
http://www.100people.org/
12 would speak Chinese
5 would speak Spanish
5 would speak English
3 would speak Arabic
3 would speak Hindi
3 would speak Bengali
3 would speak Portuguese
2 would speak Russian
2 would speak Japanese
62 would speak other
languages
computer
77 people would have a place
to shelter them
from the wind and the rain, but
23 would not
1 would be dying of starvation
15 would be undernourished
21 would be overweight
87 would have access to safe
83 would be able to read and drinking water
write; 17 would not
13 people would have no
clean, safe water to drink
7 would have a college
degree
http://www.iceuls.com/_photo/b.jpg
Total Global Emissions
Total global emissions: 10.4±0.7PgC in 2011, 37% over 1990
Percentage land-use change: 36% in 1960, 18% in 1990, 9% in 2011
Land-use change black line: Includes management-climate interactions
Source: Le Quéré et al. 2012; Global Carbon Project 2012
Three Big Ideas
• Our burning of almost 10 billion tons of carbon in
fossil fuels every year allows us to support a world
with 7 billion people
• However, this act is changing the climate by 3-9
degrees F through doubling or tripling greenhouse
gases in the air such as carbon dioxide
Do you believe in global
warming?
• What is climate?
• Why is the earth like a greenhouse?
• What is electromagnetic radiation?
• What is a greenhouse gas?
Do you believe in global
warming?
• What is climate?
– The average weather in some area over a
long length of time like 30 years
IPCC
Do you believe in global
warming?
• What is climate?
• Why is the earth like a greenhouse?
– Earth’s surface absorbs energy from the
sun and heats the air above, which
absorbs and emits electromagnetic
radiation, which further heats the surface
Do you believe in global
warming?
• What is climate?
• Why is the earth like a greenhouse?
• What is electromagnetic radiation?
– All objects in the universe emit radiation
(light), whose amount and type depend on
temperature and its structure. The sun
emits visible light, the earth mostly emits
infrared light
Do you believe in global
warming?
•
•
•
•
What is climate?
Why is the earth like a greenhouse?
What is electromagnetic radiation?
What is a greenhouse gas?
– Most of air is oxygen and nitrogen, which
does not absorb much infrared radiation,
but water vapor and carbon dioxide can
absorb quite a bit. Gases that absorb
infrared radiation efficiently are
greenhouse gases
IPCC
Svante Arrhenius
Born
19 February
1859(1859-02-19)
Vik, Sweden
Died
2 October 1927(192710-02) (aged 68)
Stockholm, Sweden
Nationality
Swedish
Fields
Physics, chemistry
Institutions
Royal Institute of
Technology
Alma mater
Uppsala University
Stockholm University
Doctoral advisor
Per Teodor Cleve, Erik
Edlund
Doctoral students
Oskar Benjamin Klein
Known for
Arrhenius equation
Theory of ionic
dissociation
Acid-base theory
Notable awards
Nobel Prize for
Chemistry (1903)
Franklin Medal (1920
To explain the ice age, Arrhenius estimated that
halving of CO2 would decrease temperatures by
4 - 5 °C (Celsius) and a doubling of CO2 would
cause a temperature rise of 5 - 6 °C. In his
1906 publication, Arrhenius adjusted the value
downwards to 1.6 °C (including water vapour
feedback: 2.1 °C). Recent (2007) estimates
from IPCC say this value (the Climate sensitivity)
is likely to be between 2 and 4.5 °C. Arrhenius
expected CO2 doubling to take about 3000 years;
it is now estimated in most scenarios to take
about a century.
IPCC
Time for a break?