Guest Discussion Topics:

Topic 1.

a. Our destiny?
The Ruddiman hypothesis.

b. The Vostok Core & Milankovitch Cycles Climate

Solar radiation is the most important, fundamental driver of climate.
We sense solar radiation through site and touch. It's more or less familiar to us.

c. Quantifying temperature change is complicated by the urban heat island effect, example from Reno nighttime temperature time series.

d. Terrestrial radiation, infrared radiation emitted and absorbed by the land, oceans, and atmosphere is
in response to solar radiation.

Average Top of Atmosphere Radiation Balance:
Total Incoming Solar Radiation Absorbed = Total Outgoing Infrared Radiation Emitted

Infrared radiation is less familiar to us. We sense it through touch.

Infrared demonstration with an IR camera.

Look around with the infrared camera.
Note nose, hair, eyeglasses, ears, skin, skin with water on it, nostrils breathing out and breathing in.
Strong IR absorbers are strong emitters; skin as strong, aluminum foil as weak.
Demonstrate use of IR to look at conduction along the propane torch heated glass rod.
Demonstrate friction as a source of heat to leave a message readable by the IR camera.
Demonstrate optics of trashbag in visible and IR wavelength ranges.
Demonstrate optics of transparent plate in the same way.
Transparent plate as an extreme example of how the atmosphere works, transparent to sunlight (more or less) and absorbing, emitting in the IR. (Closer to cloudy conditions for IR behavior).

Additional detailed notes on the demonstration (by Dr. Bauer).

Refer to Topic 3 for more on infrared radiation.

Topics 2 and 3 refer to this paper.
Topic 2. Trends in Earth's average surface temperature.
a. Average global temperature (click on image for a larger version).

b. Atlantic ocean heat storage (click on image for a larger version).


Topic 3. The rate of average surface temperature change maybe has slowed down:
a. Average global CO2 concentration is going up, and is now over 400 ppm. (click on image for a larger version).


asymmetric stretch


symmetric stretch
(not infrared active)

bending mode (vertical)
bending mode
(horizontal, degenerate)
from http://science.widener.edu/svb/ftir/ir_co2.html

Calculator for infrared radiation in the atmosphere.

UNR Weather Station data, including infrared radiation.

Atmospheric Air Motions and weather, to appreciate the complexity.

b. Average global temperature (click on image for a larger version).

c. Atlantic ocean heat storage(click on image for a larger version).


Topic 4. Basic Calculations of Energy Budget (here are the notes):

a. Discussion of atmosphere and ocean stratification due to:
i. Solar radiation
ii. Infrared radiation
iii. Convective mixing
Will need to cover density, temperature inversion in the atmosphere, stability, and the ocean mixed layer.

b. How long does it take the total atmosphere to increase in temperature
by 1 Kelvin if we have an extra 3 W/m^2 of IR radiation at the surface,
emitted by infrared active gases like CO2, CH4, H20, O3, day and night?

c. Repeat part a.) but assuming all of the extra radiation goes into heating the oceans.
How long does it take to increase the temperature of the oceans by 1 Kelvin?

4. Discussion of my research topics at UNR as time permits.
Overview of related atmospheric science topics

Topic 5: Trends

Here's a quick calculation of surface temperature averaged from 1948 to 1958,
and averaged from 2000 to 2010 for comparison. You can follow the link in the
caption below the image and do these calculations yourself as well.

Figure 1. Average surface temperature for the years 1948 to 1958 calculated using the National Center for Environmental Prediction Reanalysis data set.

Figure 2. Average surface temperature for the years 2000 to 2010 calculated using the National Center for Environmental Prediction Reanalysis data set.