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Chapter 12: Climate Change

Back to: GE008: SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY

CHAPTER 12

CLIMATE CHANGE
LEARNING OUTCOMES

At the end of this chapter, the students should be able to:

1. explain how climate change happens;

2. provide pieces of evidence to af rm the presence of climate change;
and
3. discuss the implications of climate change.

All the discussions regarding the interaction among science, technology,

and society will conclude with a current controversial topic-climate change.
It is current in a sense that it has been put under international spotlight
since the start of the 21st century. Data that have been accumulated are
used by scientists to determine if there really is a signi cant change mean?
Doesn’t the climate always change?

Climate is not similar to weather which is constantly changing. Climate

refers to the long-term weather patterns prevailing over a given area of the
planet. The term refers comes from a Greek word klinein meaning “to slope“.
It evolved into klima, connoting a zone or region of the Earth as
characterized by its atmospheric conditions. In ancient Greece, the orb of
the sun stood at high angle in the sky at noontime as ships sailed toward
the north, and the daytime temperature of the air would get colder. Hence
the klima in then north was colder that in the south.

Another consideration in explaining climate change is the interaction

between the sun and the Earth. The best way to visualize this relationship is
to look at the orbit of the Earth around the sun. With the sun in the center,
the Earth moves in an elliptical motion.

EARTH’S MOVEMENT AROUND THE SUN

While the orbit remains an ellipse, it position or orientation in space change

over time. Due to the tilt of the Earth, the whole are does not receive an
equal amount of sunlight. The Earth spins around its own axis, an imaginary
line from the North Pole to the South Pole, which dips and wobbles
gradually. The Earth could then be imagined like a spinning top or trumpo,
turning and wobbling in its path about the sun.
The elements in this interaction between the sun and the Earth are de ned
as follows:

1. Aphelion refers to the point in the orbit of the Earth farthest from the
Sun.
2. Perihelion is the point in the orbit of the Earth closes to the sun.
3. Earth’s axial tilt is the inclination angle of the Earth’s rotational axis in
relation to a line perpendicular to its orbital plane.
4. Precession is the change of the orientation of the rotational axis of the
Earth.
5. Equinox refers to the time of the sun at noon is directly over the
equator. It happens twice a year and causes an almost equal length of
day and night.
6. Soltice happnes when the sun at noon sits above the Tropic of Cancer
or Tropic of Capricorn. The summer solstice has the longest period of
daylight in the year and the winter solstice has the shortest period.
7. Precession of the equinoxes refers to the motion of the equinoxes
relative to the precession of the Earth’s axis of rotation. It happens over
thousand of years.
The center of the Earth’s orbital motion is the sun bu the angle or
orientation of the plane around the sun makes all the difference. In
discussing global warming or climate change, it makes sense to start
considering the orbit of the Earth. Sunlight falling upon the Earth warms the
planet. The amount of sunlight, however, is not constant since the
orientation of the Earth  to the sun changes.

MILANKOVITCH PARAMETERS

There have been eras of climate change in the past. Is it possible that the
21st century may introduce yet another dramatic changes in climate? is
there enough information to answer the age-old question of “what will the
weather be tomorrow” (Ciliberto, 2015)? There is a growing body of data
suggesting that the climate, not just the local day-to-day weather, is
changing all over the world. In fact, since the end of the 20th century, many
scientists have asked if the Earth is headed for another Ice Age ( Sparks &
Hawkesworth, 2004).
This concern raises the question as to what causes such dramatic changes
in the day-to-day weather climate . It was addressed as early as the 1930s by
Slovak scientist and meteorologist Milutin Milankovitch. His interest in the
daily weather patterns lead him to investigate the deeper issues: Do weather
and climate come ultimately from the sun so that it is the sun and its
relation to the Earth that accounts for the change in the climate? Is it
possible that as the distance of the sun to the Earth changes, the Earth is
affected enough to cause climate to change? He knew that it has long been
said by astronomers that the distance from the sun to the Earth is constant
as shown by the orbital radius of the Earth. Likewise, the tilt of the North
Pole of the Earth has always been relative to the plane of the solar system.
Finally, the North Pole of the Earth is also relative to the stars as the Earth
circles the sun over many years. But could all of these very small changes in
the amount of radiation reaching the Earth from the sun bring about the
huge change in the climate of the Earth?

His contemporary scientists critiqued his work, saying that the effects of the
change in the radius of the Earth’s orbit, the change in the tilt of the spin of
the Earth, and the wobble in the spin axis (now called the Milankovitch
parameters), while real, were each so small that they could not alter the
amount of sunlight reaching the Earth enough to cause a phenomenon like
the Ice Age. They felt he had a good idea but it was not enough to explain
the event that was being addressed. Milankovitch’s calculations indicated
that there would indeed be a change but seemed far too small to cause an
Ice Age. Even the cumulative effect would simply be too tiny to matter. It
could not be proven that would simply be too tiny to matter. It could not be
proven that one caused the other and hence could not be quali ed as a
scienti c fact or genuine theory.

Milankovitch believed he was on to something so much that he wanted to

validate his theoretical calculations. The work was time-consuming and
tedious. Since this was the early 20th century, no modern computing
devices were available for him to use. Even the electronic adding machine
was not invented yet. With the technology at hand, he could not prove that
the mathematics was correct (Gleick, 1987).

Nevertheless, the mathematical expressions of the Laws of Nature as rst

enunciated by Isaac Newton in the 17th century have some subtle features
that might help explain the role of the Milankovitch parameter in changing
climate.

The equations of the Laws of Nature allow for the cumulative or summative
effects. If the sun warms a small piece of land, it can warm a larger piece of
land in the same way. If a cup of water can be heated by one degree, two
cups can be heated in the same way, one cup after another. But what if the
two cups are added together? Can the sum be heated with the same
amount of energy? No , twice as much heat would then be needed. The laws
of science seem quite consistent and reasonable. But French mathematical
physicist Henri Poincare showed that mathematically, this simple
cumulative or summing process need not be as straightforward as it might
seem (Zeh, 2007).

Using the computer, scientists went back to the mathematical equations

that described how the sun-Earth relationship causes the climate to change
over thousands and even millions of years. They have come to realize that
changing the Milankovitch parameters over long periods of time can indeed
have a cumulative effect far greater than it appears at rst glance. This
discovery is part of what has been called a “new” science called Chaos
theory (Gleick, 1987).

In summary, it can thus be seen that science has been reviewing for
decades the issue of how and why the climate changes, especially with
regard the issue of how and why the climate changes, especially with regard
to explaining the Ice Age. Milakovitch studied whether or not the direct
amount of sunlight falling on Earth was the cause of the Ice Age. He
reasoned that over thousand of years, the relative position of the Earth and
sun changes, causing variations in the solar radiation reaching the Earth
over thousand years, he knew that the change would be very small at any
one time but he wanted to see if the cumulative effect could be suf cient to
cause the ice in the North Pole region to grow massively enough over time
to lead to the Ice Age. By the end of the century, the mathematics had
advanced and more data became available. As a result, scientists are more
open to new theories that could be veri ed by examining if the data and
predictions conform to one or more mathematical theories. With the
advent  of chaos theory, it seems that the Milankovitch theory might in fact
be relevant to the question of long-term climate change (Stewart, 2002).

GLOBAL WARMING

The Milankovitch parameters seem to be part of the cause of climate

change, though not the only cause. Some other factors seems to be needed.
Today, as the world considers climate change and its implications on food
security and national development, many nations are taking a deeper look
at the science behind the issue.

Most of the scientists who study climate change agree that the average
temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere has been increasing by over 90% in
the latter part of the 20th century. What are the causes of this
phenomenon(Rees, 2001)?

There are two opposing arguments on the issue of whether or not this
global warming is just “natural”. One side states that nature, simply acting
according to its law with no reference to human beings and their actions, is
the main reason. For the purveyors of this belief, global warming will happen
as naturally as the suns rises and sets. Meanwhile, the other side maintains
that global warming is caused or greatly abutted by the actions of human
beings. It lays the blame on the actions of humanity, past and present.

An oft-cited fact to better understand global warming is the temperature of

the planet versus the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

In the graph, the xnd the y-axis represents the amount of carbon dioxide
(CO2) in the atmosphere measured in parts per million (ppm). It should be
noted that the amount of CO2 in the years before 1950 remains fairly
constant but begins to climb afterwards. An important visual is the
sharpness of the CO2 increase around the beginning of the present century.
Some scientists believe this level could reach an irreversible situation in
which the heat and temperature of the planet will be unstable and
unpredictable. It should be remembered as well that while CO2 is a known
indicator of global warming, it is not the only greenhouse gas to be
concerned with.

GREENHOUSE GASES
The so-called greenhouse effect refers to how certain gases in the
atmosphere trap the heat of the sun. As early as 1859, British engineer John
Tyndall wrote:

As a dam built across a river causes a local deepening of the stream, so our
atmosphere, thrown across terrestrial [infrared] rays, produces a local
heightening of the temperature at the Earth’s surface (quoted in Weart,
2003, p.4).

His words mean that the atmosphere contains certain gases that naturally
capture the heat from the sun and hold it in so that the temperature of the
Earth’s atmosphere becomes hotter than it would be otherwise. This
mechanism is good for the biosphere because without it, the earth’s
atmosphere would be like that of Mars or Antartica- extreme cold. Life can
be sustained at planet Earth due to theses gases and other elements.

In the middle of the 19th century, Tyndall noted that the most prevalent of
these greenhouse gases is water vapor. Meanwhile, the amount of CO2 was
miniscule. Tyndall, however, was concerned as to what would become of the
Earth’s atmosphere if industrialization became widespread. Industrialization
is the conversion of an agrarian economy into an industrialized one on a
large scale. Since machines are primarily used in an industry, the production
of electricity by means of burning fossil fuel-usually coal-increases. In
Tyndall’s time, manufacturing plants were not as widespread so the by-
product of burning fossil fuel, CO2, was not great enough to be an issue.

In a century’s time, the situation changed. With the Second World War and
the changes in the geo-political arena, the industrialization of many nations
has directly affected the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. This led Charles
David Keeling, an American scientist in the mid-20th century, to nd out if
the increased burning of fossil fuel and the consequent release  of CO2, in
the atmosphere where changing the global temperature of the
atmosphere. He began to measure the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere of
a place far away from the industrialized nations – on an extinct volcano on
the island of Hawaii in the Paci c Ocean (Weart, 2003). The Keeling curve
(Figure 3.17) is a graph that plots the continuous measurements of data
taken at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii.

Graph 2

This graph shows that the concerns of Engr. Tyndall in the mid-19th century
and Dr. Keeling in the mid-20th were well-founded. The carbon dioxide
concentration has gone up and the temperature has also rise. These
ndings are the solid proofs of global warming.

But how can scientists account for the correlation between the amount of
CO2 and the temperature? Is the temperature higher because the CO2 is
higher or are the values simply a coincidence at this time in history? Just
because a thing follows something else does not prove a cause-and-effect
relationship. Therein lies the contemporary debate.

Scientists turned to history and technology to substantiate that there is a

causal relationship between high CO2 and high temperature levels. A major
part of the debate hinges on what really is happening and causing the
global warming. This issue concerns many nations since not burning fossil
fuels may mean not industrializing or modernizing.

FUTURE ACTIONS

Another area of debate is centered on the predictions as to what will happen

to the climate of the world in the future. This is a dif cult question to answer
since the climate is a chaotic system that can only be understood using
computer models. However, a computer model is only as good as the data it
used to do the calculations. Thus, the challenge is to assemble suf cient and
well-established data from all over the world to make the predictions as
accurate as possible (Sparks & Hawkesworth, 2004). Some scientists take the
issue by setting “tipping points”, specifying values of meteorological
parameters in which irreversible changes will take place. Upon reaching the
tipping point, a new state would replace the old one. In chaos theory, it
means that the Earth-atmosphere relationship would become a chaotic
region where uncertainty would exist.

As presented in this book, however, this issue has implications on the

environment and on the economy – burning of fossil fuels is one of the
major sources of electricity but also leads to higher amounts of CO2. All
factors must then be considered when resolving this issue or debate. If we
want to industrialize but at the same time protect the environment, then a
balanced plan must be created.

Science has given humanity a tool for modernization. It allows for the
emergence of technology that spread and applies knowledge for the
attainment of the good life. It must be realized that science is more like a
cookbook than a blueprint. It is open for experimentation, innovation and
re nement. So like any good chef, reading it requires a ne sense of taste.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

1. Why does the average temperature of the atmosphere rise? What

might have caused the unprecedented increase in its level?
2. Aside from the rise in mean temperature and CO2 levels, what are
some other pieces of evidence for global warming?
3. How does climate change affect biodiversity?
 4. What can people and nations do to x global warming? Give ve
contributions you can personally achieve and three potential
contributions on a national or international scale.
5. If climate change denial persists, what could possibly happen to the
Earth and humanity after 20, 50, and 100 years considering the current
trend?

Ĭ Mark Complete

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Chapter 11: Gene Theraphy GE008: SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND
SOCIETY

Course Progress

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Syllabus

 UNIT 1: GENERAL CONCEPTS IN SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY

 UNIT 2: SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, SOCIETY, AND THE HUMAN CONDITION

 UNIT 3: Special Topics in Science, Technology, and Society

 Chapter 8: Information Society
 Chapter 9: Biodiversity
 Chapter 10: The Nano World
  Chapter 11: Gene Theraphy
 Chapter 12: Climate Change

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