Week 14

     Monday's lab focused on the issues of climate change. The big questions were:

1. What is the albedo effect and how does it affect climate?
2. How does the greenhouse effect interact with the albedo effect?
3. Is the albedo effect a positive or negative feedback look?

We discussed how bad climate change is, how scientists know what they know, who is influencing these decisions, fossil fuel emissions, environmental rules, insurance, and our impact. We then moved into the topic of the greenhouse effect and infrared radiation. We learned that certain gases in our atmosphere act like a blanket around Earth and protect us from the sun's radiation, but greenhouse gases absorb radiation and re-emit it into the atmosphere, burning a hole in the atmosphere. We the discussed the idea of the albedo effect and an albedo of 1 means radiation is completely reflected, while an albedo of 0 means radiation is completely absorbed. This positive cycle happens due to all surfaces having an albedo somewhere between 0-1. We ended discussing the idea of how there is more carbon dioxide in the air in the winter and less in the summer due to plants blooming and growing to turn the carbon dioxide into oxygen. This cycle occurs every year, but due to the greenhouse effect, carbon dioxide levels are at an upward trend. 

    Thursday's lecture consisted of a question and answer session with two women who work with ice cores to help determine past greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere dating centuries back. They explained how they take ice cylinders out of different areas across the globe in sizes of about one foot in diameter and one meter in height. They then seal them in airtight containers, melt the ice, and measure different greenhouse gas levels. They compare the surface ice to deeper ice to determine the rise of greenhouse gases in today's atmosphere against the atmosphere in the distant past. 

    The textbook reading this week focused on the main point of how climate change is human caused due to the burning of fossil fuels, causing the release of an unhealthy amount of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. It explained how scientists have been discussing this issue for the past 150 years and understood even then how we were harming the environment with fossil fuel emissions. Something that I found interesting to read about is how global warming doesn't just cause warmer temperatures, but actually causes both extreme warm temperatures and extreme cold temperatures. Major weather events are affected by climate change, causing wavy polar vortexes to reach certain areas of the globe that a stable polar vortex would not. The chapter continued on with the melting of sea ice, glacier retreat, sea level rise as we have been discussing in lab. Finally, it explored the idea of how climate change is disrupting our ecosystems due to temperature and precipitation levels in different regions, causing some species to go extinct or permanently migrate elsewhere in a more suitable climate.