Download or read book CO2 Rising written by Tyler Volk and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2010-09-24 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An introduction to the global carbon cycle and the human-caused disturbances to it that are at the heart of global warming and climate change. The most colossal environmental disturbance in human history is under way. Ever-rising levels of the potent greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) are altering the cycles of matter and life and interfering with the Earth's natural cooling process. Melting Arctic ice and mountain glaciers are just the first relatively mild symptoms of what will result from this disruption of the planetary energy balance. In CO2 Rising, scientist Tyler Volk explains the process at the heart of global warming and climate change: the global carbon cycle. Vividly and concisely, Volk describes what happens when CO2 is released by the combustion of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas), letting loose carbon atoms once trapped deep underground into the interwoven web of air, water, and soil. To demonstrate how the carbon cycle works, Volk traces the paths that carbon atoms take during their global circuits. Showing us the carbon cycle from a carbon atom's viewpoint, he follows one carbon atom into a leaf of barley and then into an alcohol molecule in a glass of beer, through the human bloodstream, and then back into the air. He also compares the fluxes of carbon brought into the biosphere naturally against those created by the combustion of fossil fuels and explains why the latter are responsible for rising temperatures. Knowledge about the global carbon cycle and the huge disturbances that human activity produces in it will equip us to consider the hard questions that Volk raises in the second half of CO2 Rising: projections of future levels of CO2; which energy systems and processes (solar, wind, nuclear, carbon sequestration?) will power civilization in the future; the relationships among the wealth of nations, energy use, and CO2 emissions; and global equity in per capita emissions. Answering these questions will indeed be our greatest environmental challenge.

Download or read book Managing Water Resources in the West Under Conditions of Climate Uncertainty written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1991-02-01 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The question of whether the earth's climate is changing in some significant human-induced way remains a matter of much debate. But the fact that climate is variable over time is well known. These two elements of climatic uncertainty affect water resources planning and management in the American West. Managing Water Resources in the West Under Conditions of Climate Uncertainty examines the scientific basis for predictions of climate change, the implications of climate uncertainty for water resources management, and the management options available for responding to climate variability and potential climate change.

Download or read book Implications of Rising Carbon Dioxide Content of the Atmosphere written by Conservation Foundation and published by . This book was released on 1963 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Greenhouse Planet written by Lewis H. Ziska and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2022-09-27 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The carbon dioxide that industrial civilization spews into the atmosphere has dramatic consequences for life on Earth that extend beyond climate change. CO2 levels directly affect plant growth, in turn affecting any kind of life that depends on plants—in other words, everything. Greenhouse Planet reveals the stakes of increased CO2 for plants, people, and ecosystems—from crop yields to seasonal allergies and from wildfires to biodiversity. The veteran plant biologist Lewis H. Ziska describes the importance of plants for food, medicine, and culture and explores the complex ways higher CO2 concentrations alter the systems on which humanity relies. He explains the science of how increased CO2 affects various plant species and addresses the politicization and disinformation surrounding these facts. Ziska confronts the claim that “CO2 is plant food,” a longtime conservative talking point. While not exactly false, it is deeply misleading. CO2 doesn’t just make “good” plants grow; it makes all plants grow. It makes poison ivy more poisonous, kudzu more prolific, cheatgrass more flammable. CO2 stimulates some species more than others: weeds fare particularly well and become harder to control. Many crops grow more abundantly but also become less nutritious. And the further effects of climate change will be formidable. Detailing essential science with wit and panache, Greenhouse Planet is an indispensable book for all readers interested in the ripple effects of increasing CO2.

Download or read book Climate Change written by The Royal Society and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2014-02-26 with total page 74 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Climate Change: Evidence and Causes is a jointly produced publication of The US National Academy of Sciences and The Royal Society. Written by a UK-US team of leading climate scientists and reviewed by climate scientists and others, the publication is intended as a brief, readable reference document for decision makers, policy makers, educators, and other individuals seeking authoritative information on the some of the questions that continue to be asked. Climate Change makes clear what is well-established and where understanding is still developing. It echoes and builds upon the long history of climate-related work from both national academies, as well as on the newest climate-change assessment from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It touches on current areas of active debate and ongoing research, such as the link between ocean heat content and the rate of warming.

Download or read book Climate Intervention written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2015-06-17 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The signals are everywhere that our planet is experiencing significant climate change. It is clear that we need to reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from our atmosphere if we want to avoid greatly increased risk of damage from climate change. Aggressively pursuing a program of emissions abatement or mitigation will show results over a timescale of many decades. How do we actively remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to make a bigger difference more quickly? As one of a two-book report, this volume of Climate Intervention discusses CDR, the carbon dioxide removal of greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere and sequestration of it in perpetuity. Climate Intervention: Carbon Dioxide Removal and Reliable Sequestration introduces possible CDR approaches and then discusses them in depth. Land management practices, such as low-till agriculture, reforestation and afforestation, ocean iron fertilization, and land-and-ocean-based accelerated weathering, could amplify the rates of processes that are already occurring as part of the natural carbon cycle. Other CDR approaches, such as bioenergy with carbon capture and sequestration, direct air capture and sequestration, and traditional carbon capture and sequestration, seek to capture CO2 from the atmosphere and dispose of it by pumping it underground at high pressure. This book looks at the pros and cons of these options and estimates possible rates of removal and total amounts that might be removed via these methods. With whatever portfolio of technologies the transition is achieved, eliminating the carbon dioxide emissions from the global energy and transportation systems will pose an enormous technical, economic, and social challenge that will likely take decades of concerted effort to achieve. Climate Intervention: Carbon Dioxide Removal and Reliable Sequestration will help to better understand the potential cost and performance of CDR strategies to inform debate and decision making as we work to stabilize and reduce atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide.

Download or read book Behind the Curve written by Joshua P. Howe and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2014-04-01 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1958, Charles David Keeling began measuring the concentration of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. His project kicked off a half century of research that has expanded our knowledge of climate change. Despite more than fifty years of research, however, our global society has yet to find real solutions to the problem of global warming. Why? In Behind the Curve, Joshua Howe attempts to answer this question. He explores the history of global warming from its roots as a scientific curiosity to its place at the center of international environmental politics. The book follows the story of rising CO2—illustrated by the now famous Keeling Curve—through a number of historical contexts, highlighting the relationships among scientists, environmentalists, and politicians as those relationships changed over time. The nature of the problem itself, Howe explains, has privileged scientists as the primary spokespeople for the global climate. But while the “science first” forms of advocacy they developed to fight global warming produced more and better science, the primacy of science in global warming politics has failed to produce meaningful results. In fact, an often exclusive focus on science has left advocates for change vulnerable to political opposition and has limited much of the discussion to debates about the science itself. As a result, while we know much more about global warming than we did fifty years ago, CO2 continues to rise. In 1958, Keeling first measured CO2 at around 315 parts per million; by 2013, global CO2 had soared to 400 ppm. The problem is not getting better - it's getting worse. Behind the Curve offers a critical and levelheaded look at how we got here.

Download or read book Potential Climatic Impacts of Increasing Atmospheric CO2 with Emphasis on Water Availability and Hydrology in the United States written by David Rind and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Carbon Dioxide Populations and Communities written by Fakhri A. Bazzaz and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 1996-07-17 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In past decades and in association with a continuing global industrial development, the global atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has been rising. Among the many predictions made concerning this disturbing trend is global warming sufficient to melt polar ice-caps thereby dramatically altering existing shorelines. This book will help fill an obvious gap in the carbon dioxide debate by substituting date for speculation.* * Includes contributions from leading authorities around the world* Serves as a companion to Carbon Dioxide and Terrestrial Ecosystems* The first book of its kind to explore evolutionary responses of both populations and communities to elevated carbon dioxide

Download or read book The Discovery of Global Warming written by Spencer R. Weart and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2001 a panel representing virtually all the world's governments and climate scientists announced that they had reached a consensus: the world was warming at a rate without precedent during at least the last ten millennia, and that warming was caused by the buildup of greenhouse gases from human activity. The consensus itself was at least a century in the making. The story of how scientists reached their conclusion--by way of unexpected twists and turns and in the face of formidable intellectual, financial, and political obstacles--is told for the first time in The Discovery of Global Warming. Spencer R. Weart lucidly explains the emerging science, introduces us to the major players, and shows us how the Earth's irreducibly complicated climate system was mirrored by the global scientific community that studied it. Unlike familiar tales of Science Triumphant, this book portrays scientists working on bits and pieces of a topic so complex that they could never achieve full certainty--yet so important to human survival that provisional answers were essential. Weart unsparingly depicts the conflicts and mistakes, and how they sometimes led to fruitful results. His book reminds us that scientists do not work in isolation, but interact in crucial ways with the political system and with the general public. The book not only reveals the history of global warming, but also analyzes the nature of modern scientific work as it confronts the most difficult questions about the Earth's future. Table of Contents: Preface 1. How Could Climate Change? 2. Discovering a Possibility 3. A Delicate System 4. A Visible Threat 5. Public Warnings 6. The Erratic Beast 7. Breaking into Politics 8. The Discovery Confirmed Reflections Milestones Notes Further Reading Index Reviews of this book: A soberly written synthesis of science and politics. --Gilbert Taylor, Booklist Reviews of this book: Charting the evolution and confirmation of the theory [of global warming], Spencer R. Weart, director of the Center for the History of Physics of the American Institute of Physics, dissects the interwoven threads of research and reveals the political and societal subtexts that colored scientists' views and the public reception their work received. --Andrew C. Revkin, New York Times Book Review Reviews of this book: It took a century for scientists to agree that gases produced by human activity were causing the world to warm up. Now, in an engaging book that reads like a detective story, physicist Weart reports the history of global warming theory, including the internal conflicts plaguing the research community and the role government has had in promoting climate studies. --Publishers Weekly Reviews of this book: It is almost two centuries since the French mathematician Jean Baptiste Fourier discovered that the Earth was far warmer than it had any right to be, given its distance from the Sun...Spencer Weart's book about how Fourier's initially inconsequential discovery finally triggered urgent debate about the future habitability of the Earth is lucid, painstaking and commendably brief, packing everything into 200 pages. --Fred Pearce, The Independent Reviews of this book: [The Discovery of Global Warming] is a well-written, well-researched and well-balanced account of the issues involved...This is not a sermon for the faithful, or verses from Revelation for the evangelicals, but a serious summary for those who like reasoned argument. Read it--and be converted. --John Emsley, Times Literary Supplement Reviews of this book: This is a terrific book...Perhaps the finest compliment I could give this book is to report that I intend to use it instead of my own book...for my climate class. The Discovery of Global Warming is more up-to-date, better balanced historically, beautifully written and, not least important, short and to the point. I think the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] needs to enlist a few good historians like Weart for its next assessment. --Stephen H. Schneider, Nature Reviews of this book: This short, well-written book by a science historian at the American Institute of Physics adds a serious voice to the overheated debate about global warming and would serve as a great starting point for anyone who wants to better understand the issue. --Maureen Christie, American Scientist Reviews of this book: I was very pleasantly surprised to find that Spencer Weart's account provides much valuable and interesting material about how the discipline developed--not just from the perspective of climate science but also within the context of the field's relation to other scientific disciplines, the media, political trends, and even 20th-century history (particularly the Cold War). In addition, Weart has done a valuable service by recording for posterity background information on some of the key discoveries and historical figures who contributed to our present understanding of the global warming problem. --Thomas J. Crowley, Science Reviews of this book: Weart has done us all a service by bringing the discovery of global warming into a short, compendious and persuasive book for a general readership. He is especially strong on the early days and the scientific background. --Crispin Tickell, Times Higher Education Supplement A Capricious Beast Ever since the days when he had trudged around fossil lake basins in Nevada for his doctoral thesis, Wally Broecker had been interested in sudden climate shifts. The reported sudden jumps of CO2 in Greenland ice cores stimulated him to put this interest into conjunction with his oceanographic interests. The result was a surprising and important calculation. The key was what Broecker later described as a "great conveyor belt'"of seawater carrying heat northward. . . . The energy carried to the neighborhood of Iceland was "staggering," Broecker realized, nearly a third as much as the Sun sheds upon the entire North Atlantic. If something were to shut down the conveyor, climate would change across much of the Northern Hemisphere' There was reason to believe a shutdown could happen swiftly. In many regions the consequences for climate would be spectacular. Broecker was foremost in taking this disagreeable news to the public. In 1987 he wrote that we had been treating the greenhouse effect as a 'cocktail hour curiosity,' but now 'we must view it as a threat to human beings and wildlife.' The climate system was a capricious beast, he said, and we were poking it with a sharp stick. I found the book enjoyable, thoughtful, and an excellent introduction to the history of what may be one of the most important subjects of the next one hundred years. --Clark Miller, University of Wisconsin The Discovery of Global Warming raises important scientific issues and topics and includes essential detail. Readers should be able to follow the discussion and emerge at the end with a good understanding of how scientists have developed a consensus on global warming, what it is, and what issues now face human society. --Thomas R. Dunlap, Texas A&M University

Download or read book Co2 And Plants written by Edgar R. Lemon and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2019-04-11 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents information on the direct effects of increased atmospheric CO2 on plants. It considers what we already know about plant responses to various CO2 concentrations. .

Download or read book Worlds in the Making written by Svante Arrhenius and published by . This book was released on 1908 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Are Carbon Dioxide Emissions Rising More Rapidly Than Expected written by and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 7 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At least one recent report and numerous news articles suggest that carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are rising more rapidly than expected. This contention is often made by comparing recent emissions estimates with the greenhouse gas (GHG) scenarios published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2000. While CO2 emissions associated with human activities continue to rise and may be worthy of alarm because of their influence on climate change any short-term comparisons between actual emissions and IPCC scenarios miss the mark. First, the IPCC scenarios explicitly are not predictions. Second, the IPCC scenarios are meant to represent different possible GHG trajectories over many decades, and represent smooth emissions paths averaged over at least 10 years. Just as the actual weather over a few years is not necessarily representative of long-term climate, variability of emissions over one or several years is not necessarily representative of long-term trends. Nonetheless, monitoring of CO2 emissions and concentrations, and analysis of the factors driving changes, is important to designing and evaluating policies to address climate change.

Download or read book Carbon Dioxide and Environmental Stress written by Yiqi Luo and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 1999-04-02 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Interactions of CO2 with Water, Temperature, Salinity, UV-B, Ozone, and Nutrients: -- T.C. Hsiao and R.B. Jackson, Interactive Effects of Water Stress and Elevated CO2 on Growth, Photosynthesis, and Water Use Efficiency. -- J.S. Amthor, Increasing Atmospheric CO2 Concentration, Water Use, and Water Stress: Scaling Up from the Plant to the Landscape. -- R.M.M. Crawford and D.W. Wolfe, Temperature: Cellular to Whole Plant and Population Responses. -- S.D. Smith, D.N. Jordan, and E.P. Hamerlynck, Effects of Elevated CO2 and Temperature Stress on Ecosystem Processes. -- R.E. Munns, G.R. Cramer, and M.C. Ball, Interactions Between Rising CO2, Soil Salinity, and Plant Growth. -- J. Rozema, A.H. Teramura, and M.M. Caldwell, Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment and Enhanced Solar Ultraviolet-B Radiation: Gene to Ecosystem Responses. -- A. Polle and E.J. Pell, The Role of Carbon Dioxide in Modifying the Plant Response to Ozone. -- H.H. Rogers, G.B. Runion, S.A. Prior, and H.A. Torbert, Response of Plants ...

Download or read book Global Energy Futures and the Carbon Dioxide Problem written by and published by . This book was released on 1981 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The impact of rising carbon dioxide levels on crop nutrients and human health written by Smith, Matthew R. and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2018-07-06 with total page 4 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Carbon dioxide (CO2) levels are rising globally at a rapid pace, on track to surpass 550 parts per million (ppm) by midcentury. Studies have found that, when grown under elevated CO2 concentrations of 546–586 ppm, many food crops—including wheat, rice, barley, and soybeans—have lowered concentrations of nutrients, including many that are important for overall health, such as iron, zinc, and protein. Elevated CO2 also affects both the quantity and quality of forage, thereby affecting animal performance and production and, consequently, the availability of nutrients from animal-source foods, such as meat, milk, and eggs. This loss of dietary nutrients in foods could translate to increased nutritional deficiency for hundreds of millions of people already on the brink of deficiency—mainly developing countries in Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa based on dietary preferences for the commodities most affected. This policy note examines the link between rising CO2 levels and declining nutritional content for a number of major crops, as well as forage. The discussion includes a comparison of the varying effects by crop, and strategies to address this challenge in the context of climate change.

Download or read book The Rise and Fall of the Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climate Change written by Rex J. Fleming and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-07-01 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a complete review of the role of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere and reveals detailed information about the subject of climate change. Many different science disciplines are visited and discussed and each area is introduced with a brief summary written to appeal to a broader audience. The logic of CO2 involvement in changing the climate is investigated from every perspective: reviewing the historical data record of Ice Ages with vast ice sheets, noting the interglacial periods of little or no ice, examining in further detail the 20th century data record and evaluating the radiation role of CO2 in the atmosphere. The radiation calculations, using the appropriate equations and data are reviewed in great detail. The results of this review and examination reveal no role of CO2 in any change of the Earth’s climate.