GLOBAL WARMING

Andrew Goudie

St Cross College

Oxford

GLOBAL WARMING - AN UPDATE

OBJECTIONS• If warming is taking place, it is due to solar activity• Satellite observations do not show warming trend• Only urban centres are warming• Past changes have been large and rapid, yet we

survived• Higher carbon dioxide levels fertilize• Some environments will be nicer under warming• Changes in the ocean conveyor could cause

cooling• Increased cloud cover will dampen down warming• Models give very different scenarios• No continuous warming in 20th century

SUPPORT

• The world is getting warmer• Greenhouse gas levels are spiralling• There is evidence from ice cores of past links

between greenhouse gas levels and climate• Sensitive environments are already adversely

affected and there are hot spots where modest changes cause major responses

• There are tipping points and positive feedbacks (e.g. Switching off the fridge causes putrefaction)

HOT SPOTS

• Ice bodies sensitive to wave attack as ice shelves retreat

• Valley glaciers

• Permafrost – negative mean annual temperatures

• Coral reefs in hot water – 30oC threshold

• Hurricane prone coasts – 27oC threshold

• Dunes at vegetation threshold

IPCC, 2007

Main boxes are last 10,000 years, small inset boxes are since 1750

Carbon dioxide

Methane

Nitrous oxide

IPCC 2007

IT HAS ALL STARTED TO HAPPEN

GLACIER RETREAT

Nisqually, NW USA)

SNOWPACK

Long term monitoring of mountain snowpacks in the W. USA and Europe have shown trends towards decreasing snowpack depth (50-75%) though this depends on such features as the North Atlantic Oscillation and degree of continentality

FIRE

• Warmer temperatures and less snowpack appear to be increasing the duration and intensity of wild fires in the western US

• Since 1986 there has been a 4x increase of major wildfires and a 6x increase in the area burned, compared to the period from 1970-1986 (Westerling et al., 2006).

WARMING

IPCC 2007 says that warming this century will be around 2-6 degrees

There will be greater warming than the average in high latitudes

This will produce the greatest warmth of the last 3 million years

In geological terms the rate of change will be high.

Latitudinal gradient of precipitation change

IPCC 2007

Drylands will tend to get drier

PRECIPITATION CHANGE

• Overall global increase

• Some intensification of tropical circulation

• Northward displacement of sinking Hadley cell air

• More moisture availability in cold regions

• Increase in UK winter rainfall and decrease in summer rainfall

• Changes in rainfall intensity

Oxford

SINKING HOUSES

• Higher evapotranspiration loss of moisture

• Lower summer rainfall• Drying of clay subsoils• 1976 was once in a

thousand year event, by 2076 more likely to be a one in five year event

• .

STREAM RUNOFF

• In arid regions, an increase of temperature by c 2 degrees, and a reduction in precipitation of c 10% can lead to a discharge reduction of c 60 or more %.

Hadley Centre predictions of change in runoff by 2050

Large areas of Holocene and late Pleistocene dunes are ready to move

They were active in Holocene drought phases

They are on the border between vegetated stability and unvegetated reactivation

A black blizzard in the dirty thirties

Sea water temperature threshold of 27oCIncrease in geographical spread?Increase in intensity?Increase in frequency?Warm water is not the only control of hurricane formation

HURRICANES AND WARMING

• Walsh (2004) says no detectable changes in hurricane characteristics that can be ascribed to global warming

• Goldenberg et al (2001) show Atlantic hurricanes have not shown trend like variability over the last century but multi-decadal cycles

• Knutson & Tuleya’s (2001) simulations suggest 5-12% increase in wind speeds for 2.2 degree C rise in SST

• Emanuel (2005) has found hurricanes have become increasingly destructive as SSTs have warmed over last 30 years

THE RHINE – SHABALOVA ET AL• The Rhine’s discharge will

become markedly more seasonal with mean discharge decreases of about 30% in summer, and increases by about 30 percent in winter by the end of the century

• The summer decrease is due to decrease in precipitation + increase in evapotranspiration

• The winter increase is caused by increased precipitation, reduced snow storage and increased early melt

ALTITUDINAL SHIFT IN VEGETATION

• Lapse rates suggest that vegetation will shift c 180 m for every degree rise in temperature

• This implies that vegetation belts (and snowlines, etc.) will migrate by some hundreds of metres.

PERIGLACIAL AREAS

• Retreat of permafrost

• Thermokarst

• Removal of glue from slopes

• Erosion of shores and banks

• Deeper active layer – debris flows, etc.

• Change in runoff seasonality

THERMOKARST

THE BIG ISSUE

• Ice sheets will be subjected to increased ablation (melting), the buoyancy effects of rising sea levels, the effects of ice shelf disappearance on wave attack, and the wasting effects of warmer oceans

• On the other hand, higher temperatures will lead to more snowfall and thus to higher rates of accumulation

GLACIERS

• Since Little Ice Age general retreat of c 20-70m per year

• Glaciers of European Alps have lost c 50% of their volume since the LIA

• Tidewater glaciers retreat especially quickly – The Columbia glacier in Alaska retreated 13km between 1982 and 2000

• East African glaciers occupy one third to one sixth of former area

• They provide a lot of water – when it has gone it has gone.

cm

20th century rate of rise = < 2mm per year

21st century rate of rise = c 6 mm per year

c Half will be due to Steric effect

SUBSIDING AREAS

• Deltas, atolls• Tectonic sinking• Isostatic

compensation• Groundwater and

hydrocarbon removal• Compaction of

organic sediments

SENSITIVE COASTS

• Beaches• Salt marshes• Mangrove swamps• Deltas• Coral reefs• Lagoons• Estuaries

MISSISSIPPI BIRDSFOOT

MISSISSIPPI BIRDSFOOT

• Subsidence• Accelerating sea level

rise• Diversion of flow to

other mouths• Reduction in

nourishment due to embankments

• Reduction of silt loads by cascades of dams

BANGLADESH AND THE GANGES/BRAMAPUTRA DELTA

CORAL REEFS

• Increase in sea surface temperatures will cause stress (bleaching) or stimulus

• Increase in storm frequency and intensity will build up islands, erode reefs, change species composition

• Increase in sea levels will stimulate reef growth (if slow), but will cause inundation (if fast) or if corals are stressed by siltation

SALT MARSH VULNERABILITY

• Less sensitive – areas of high sediment input, areas of high tidal range (with high sediment transport potential), areas with effective organic accumulation

• More sensitive – areas of subsidence, areas of low sediment input, slow growing mangroves, micro-tidal areas, reef settings (lack of allogenic sediment), constrained by sea walls

BRUUN RULE

About 100 m of erosion for 1 m rise in sea level on sandy beach

DEPOSITION

EROSION

ACCELERATING COASTAL EROSION

• Sea level rise and the Bruun Rule

• Reduced beach nourishment because of dams and defences

• Increasing storm activity?

GLOBAL WARMING AND HAZARDS

• Droughts and dunes and dust

• Fires

• Hurricanes

• Permafrost degradation

• Glacier retreat

• Sea-level rise

• Coast erosion