INSIDE THE SPHERE BY JOHN SODEAU

ILLUSTRATED BY NICHOLAS McGUIRE

A SET OF SCIENCE FACT AND FACTION BOOKS ON THE ENVIRONMENT

FOR TRANSITION YEAR STUDENTS

John Sodeau

Illustrated by Nicholas McGuire

Book 2

Climate Change

Weather is the mix of measurable events, such as cloudiness, humidity, temperature and pressure that happens each day in our atmosphere. From this

information and computer models it is possible to forecast whether, say, a storm is likely to happen in a certain region over the next few days. Weath-

er is, of course, not the same at different locations over Planet Earth at the same time. Contrast for yourself what the weather is like today (or yester-

day) in Buenos Aires compared to Oslo compared to Nairobi.

Climate is the average weather in a place as recorded over many years. As we all know too well in Ireland the weather can change in just a few hours

(or even minutes). In contrast the climate takes hundreds, thousands, even millions of years to change. And our climate is changing. So with respect

to the average global temperature for the years between 1961 and 1990, Planet Earth is now in 2012, on average, about 0.5 OC warmer. The problems

and debates about the issues associated with climate change arise because there are difficulties in predicting an exact atmospheric response to the

many changing stimuli that are possible, especially the impact of human activities.

Climate change has particular impacts on our Environment. These include effects such as clean water availability, “desertification” and loss of biodi-

versity. But it can all become very complex e.g. forestry where higher mean annual temperatures, altered precipitation patterns and more frequent and

extreme weather events can lead to “stressing” and subsequent forest loss. This is important because trees and their leaves in forests trap and store

carbon dioxide, a chemical that plays a major role in climate change. These different climate effects can have large impacts on us particularly regard-

ing levels of food production, drought, polar ice-cap melting and also our own security and safety. Therefore trying to reduce, reverse or at least sta-

bilize our climate is probably the most important challenge that we all face.

John Sodeau

Illustrated by Nicholas McGuire

Book 2

The Greenhouse Effect

Planet Earth has a baseline Greenhouse effect due to trace amounts of H2O and CO2 that naturally occur. Over the past million years the global mean

temperature has cycled regularly between glacial and interglacial periods, with global mean temperatures around 10 OC and 14 OC respectively. These

temperatures track with the CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere at those times cycling between 0.020% and 0.027 % respectively. The Greenhouse ef-

fect occurs because certain atmospheric molecules (of which H2O and CO2 are the most important) allow wavelengths capable of photosynthesis through

the atmosphere but trap outgoing infrared (IR) wavelengths emitted by Earth. Some of this radiation is then returned to the Earth’s surface causing it to

warm up. The effect is necessary to maintain the Earth's climate, surface temperature and liquid state of water in the biosphere on land, rivers and oceans.

The natural warming effect of our atmosphere can be understood by thinking of it as a moth-eaten blanket (but actually consisting of water vapour plus

small amounts of carbon dioxide gas). The holes in it stop “overheating”. But if much carbon dioxide is added the blanket is made thicker and therefore

more warming. Also the “holes” can be filled in by chemicals that absorb IR radiation at wavelengths different from water or carbon dioxide. Good exam-

ples of such molecules are methane (CH4), the chlorofluorocarbons and nitrous oxide (N2O). The enhanced Greenhouse effect refers to the augmentation

of the natural vapours and gases by human (anthropogenic) activities. In fact the effect was predicted in 1896 by a scientist called Svante Arrhenius who

wrote: “I have calculated the mean alteration of our temperature that would follow if the quantity of carbonic acid varied from its present value to a dou-

bled value: it would be 5-6 OC.” Today we know from empirical evidence, looking at the differences in climate during ice ages and interglacial periods

that a doubling of CO2 leads to an increase in temperature in the range between 2.5 to 3.5 OC. With the inclusion of other Greenhouse gases it is likely that

the increase will be about 4 OC by 2080. On the other hand processes related to the formation of clouds, snow and ice may lead to a cooling effect because

of their reflective properties. Including all relevant features in a predictive computer model is very difficult currently and so there is still a need for dedi-

cated research and observation programmes to obtain a better understanding of each factor. The price of this research is surely worth paying if the poten-

tial cost is worldwide food shortages, drought in some places, violent storms in others and the ice-caps melting. But we need citizens to recognise that

there is a real problem facing us as is apparent from the science that is already known. International legislators need to act now before it is too late!

What are the differences between

weather, climate and meteorology?

It stared with a loud

Wind-blow Water Boat

Before they started work, Midge told Spring some history about the Anthro: “When we all slid down the rainbow col-oured glass rod, most of us landed in this place but we didn’t know if anyone had ended up anywhere else”. He paused and then went on “Some probably drowned in the Great Slide be-cause many of us still have family members and friends that are missing”. He paused again and then said “I lost my broth-er and sister, Mario and Maria and I miss them both a lot.” Spring was upset by this and replied “It’s not hopeless, Midge, they could still be alive somewhere”.

“Yes maybe they are…..but even though we’ve used our wind-blow water boats and air boats, as well as our balloon flyers to find out if anyone else survived, we’ve had no luck in res-cuing anybody yet” he said with a tear in his eye. Then he got quite angry: “I should be doing more but first of all I was too busy fighting the Oz-1 war and now it’s this weather change problem!”

Wind-blow Air Boat

stion

How many nanoseconds and how

many femtoseconds are there in

one second?

It stared with a loud

Jo, Davy and Michael soon found a way to store and transport the heat and flame energy given out by the Darkfire using small contain-ers they called HotBoxes©. Every Anthro could carry one around.

Their ideas were revolutionary and they invented many other useful devices to make life underground much easier. So on the cavern walls they quickly began to advertise their Nanowave Ovens™ for cooking (“It’s fast, it’s a blast”), the Femtofone© for underground communications (“Sign up to the Dactyl Network now!”) and the ul-tra-bright Chlorescent Lamps® (“Making light work for you.”). All of these needed HotBox© energy to work but there was lots of Darkfire buried in the caverns. Sadly Anthro are never satisfied: “We want more inventions and in more colours” they begged.

There were some drawbacks to the HotBox© technology. The contain-ers did give off lots of smoke, SOX fumes and the nasty Hazer gangs that would attack the Anthros and make them cough. So Michael put powerful pumps into the breathing shafts to take the emissions over-ground.

A Breather Pump

HotBox ©

Multi-pack

SOX: sulfur oxides such as sulfur dioxide and sulfates Hazers: Airborne Particulate Matter (PM)

The Global Warming Potential (GWP) of

carbon dioxide is taken as I, no matter

what time-span. What are the 100 year-

GWPs of methane and Freon-12? Why do

these two molecules contribute less to

global warming than carbon dioxide?

It stared with a loud

Midge, Michael, Davy, Jo (and Charlie) put their heads together and came up with a possibility to explain what was happening by pooling together all their knowledge.

Henry, who was normally quiet said: “When Fo-Tons hit Dark-fire it bursts into flames and gets very hot. What if the same thing happens with the CO-2 robots but instead they only get very warm when Fo-Tons hit them?”

Michael replied: “Brilliant. And they must behave a bit like hot water.” Midge said to Davy “We know if you get water hot it makes steam-gas that floats up into the air because we live around warm vents in the ground. Then when the steam-gas cools it makes water again and drops down to the surface.”

“That must be how the white floating watering-carriers are made and work then” said Michael and Midge went on “Yes. The Ocean water can get quite hot when the Fo-Tons crash into it. That could drive off moisture as steam-gas. Then when the steam-gas gets high up in the space it gets colder and makes rainwater.”

A CO-2 Robot

What are garden greenhouses used

for? How do they work?

It stared with a loud

Charlie then said: “Maybe when rainwater gets very cold it makes those white six-sider solids that drop over the mountains of Skou-ros”.“Yes” Midge said “I know that when my CFCs get into contact with water it gets cold and makes a white solid. And when that warms up, after the CFCs have all gone, the water reappears from the solid.”

“Maybe the place the Gens call Arctica is melting then” said Char-lie suddenly. “Where’s Arctica?” said Michael, Jo and Davy togeth-er. “It’s a dark, very cold place high up in the space. And it’s dan-gerous because I almost got stuck frozen on the white solid walls that are there.”

Midge said “The steam-gas that floats up there must get very cold and then turns into the white solid wall. So if hot robots float up to there as well and hit it, the wall would turn back into the rain water that falls back down and overfills the Ocean”.

“If we’re right about this then we have a serious problem here” said Michael. They were right alright.

And indeed all of the Anthro on all of the Islands were in great danger because the Meltwater Flood was about to hit them.

Arctica

CFC: Chlorofluorocarbon

John Sodeau

Illustrated by Nicholas McGuire

Book 2

PEQ8:The difference between magma and lava is location. Magma resides deep underground and becomes lava if it has low enough viscosity to travel out of a volcano. PEQ9: 1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6 = 0.0046 or 0.46%

PEQ10: Joseph Priestley. Humphrey Davy.

PEQ11: Carbon. Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen and Sulfur.

PEQ12: 109 nanoseconds in a second. 1015 femtoseconds in a second.

PEQ13: Carbonic acid. 2 H2O (l) + CO2 (aq) → H3O+ (aq) + HCO3

- (aq)

PEQ14: The term “Heat” represents the total energy (kinetic plus potential) of a system whereas temperature is a measure of only the kinetic (average molecular motion) energy component.

PEQ15: 317 ppmv in 1960. 403 ppmv in April 2015. (Derived from in situ air samples collected at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, USA. This is the world standard site employed by scientists for the measure-ment of carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere).

PEQ16: 1 exaJoule is 1x 1018 J. 1Watt is 1 J/sec because power is the rate at which energy is con-sumed. The difference in annual energy usage between 1950 and 2010 is 450 x 1018 J. So the power difference will be 450 x 1018/(365 x 24 x 60 x 60) in W. Therefore the answer is 1.43 x 1013 W.