Tag: greenhouse gases

The Physics of Climate Change – Review

The goal of this blog is to create a list of what I call super facts. Super facts are important and true facts that nevertheless are surprising to a lot of people, mind-blowing, or misunderstood or disputed among non-experts. They are special facts that we all can learn something important from. However, I also make posts that are not super facts but feature other interesting information, such as this book review and book recommendation. The book is:

The Physics of Climate Change by Lawrence M. Krauss

I should mention that Lawrence M. Krauss is a renowned theoretical / particle physicist and cosmologist and not a climate scientist. However, he took a deep dive into the physics of climate change because of its importance. Below I am listing the four versions of this book. I bought and read the paperback version.

  • Hardback –  Publisher : Post Hill Press (March 2, 2021), ISBN-10 : 1642938165, ISBN-13 : 978-1642938166, 208 pages, item weight : 13.6 ounces, dimensions : 5.5 x 0.7 x 8.25 inches. It costs $8.70 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
  • Paperback –  Publisher : Post Hill Press (March 28, 2023), ASIN : B0BTMPFL93, ISBN-13 : 979-8888450925, 208 pages, item weight : 8 ounces, dimensions : 5.5 x 0.6 x 8.25 inches. It costs $15.01 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
  • Kindle –  Publisher : Post Hill Press (January 26, 2021), ASIN : B08P5DK7HB, ISBN-13 : 978-1642938173, 187 pages, it costs $12.99 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
  • Audiobook – Publisher : Primordial Productions INC (January 26, 2021), ASIN : B08R6HT764, Listening length : 4 hours and 53 minutes. $0.00 with membership. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
The front cover features the title and the name of author Lawrence M. Krauss author of The Edge of Knowledge. There is also a recommendation from Elizabeth Kolbert saying, “the ideal book for understanding the science of global warming.” This is on a purple/reddish/brown background with clouds. | The Physics of Climate Change by Lawrence M. Krauss Front Cover
The front cover of The Physics of Climate Change by Lawrence M. Krauss. Click on the image to go to the Amazon page for the hardback version of the book.

Amazon’s Description of the Book

The first book to briefly and clearly present the science of climate change in a way that is accessible to laypeople, providing the perspective needed to understand and assess the foundations and predictions of climate change.

“Brilliant and fundamental, this is the necessary book about our prime global emergency. Here you’ll find the facts, the processes, the physics of our complex and changing climate, but delivered with eloquence and urgency. Lawrence Krauss writes with a clarity that transcends mere politics. Prose and poetry were never better bedfellows.” —Ian McEwan, Booker Prize-winning author of Solar and Machines Like Me

“Lawrence Krauss has written the ideal book for anyone interested in understanding the science of global warming. It is at once elegant, rigorous, and timely.”—Elizabeth Kolbert, staff writer, The New Yorker, and Pulitzer prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction

“A brief, brilliant, and charming summary of what physicists know about climate change and how they learned it.” —Sheldon Glashow, Nobel Laureate in Physics, Metcalf Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Boston University

“The distinguished scientist Lawrence Krauss turns his penetrating gaze on the most pressing existential threat facing our world: climate change. It is brimming with information lucidly analysed. Such hope as there is lies in science, and a physicist of Dr. Krauss’s imaginative versatility is unusually qualified to offer it.” —Richard Dawkins, author of The Blind Watchmaker and Science in the Soul

“Lucid and gripping, this study of the most severe challenge humans have ever faced leads the reader from the basic physics of climate change to recognition of the damage that humans have already caused and on to the prospects that lie ahead if we do not change course soon.” —Noam Chomsky, Laureate Professor, University of Arizona, author of Internationalism or Extinction?

“Lawrence Krauss tells the story of climate change with erudition, urgency, and passion. It is our great good luck that one of our most brilliant scientists is also such a gifted writer. This book will change the way we think about the future.” —Jennifer Finney Boylan, author of Good Boy and She’s Not There

“Everything on climate change that I’ve seen is either dumbed down and bossy or written for other climate scientists. I’ve been looking for a book that can let me, a layperson, understand the science. This book does just what I was looking for. It is important.” —Penn Jillette, Magician, author of Presto! and God, No!

“The renowned physicist Lawrence Krauss makes the science behind one of the most important issues of our time accessible to all.” —Richard C. J. Somerville, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego

“Lawrence Krauss is a fine physicist, a talented writer, and a scientist deeply engaged with public affairs. His book deserves wide readership. The book’s eloquent exposition of the science and the threats should enlighten all readers and motivate them to an urgent concern about our planet’s future.” —Lord Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal, former president of the Royal Society, author of On the Future: Prospects for Humanity.

This is my five star review for the book The Physics of Climate Change

These Climate Change Physics Lessons will Make You Smarter

The author, Lawrence M. Krauss, is a particle physicist and cosmologist who took a deep dive into climate science, because it is an important topic that is misunderstood amongst the public. He demonstrates conclusively that the very rapid current global warming is indeed happening and is caused by us. He states that “Climate Change, evolution, and the Big Bang are all empirical facts, not speculation.” And that the existence of the greenhouse effect and its theoretical interpretation are by now essentially unimpeachable. He also states that “the basic physics is relatively straightforward and can and should be explained comprehensively to interested bystanders.”

However, this is easier said than done. Physics is hard for people without a physics education and people often underestimate what scientists understand. A famous example of this that is mentioned in this book is when former Fox TV host Bill O’Reilly notoriously claimed that no one knows why the tides happen, when in fact none other than Sir Isaac Newton explained the fundamental physics behind the tides hundreds of years ago. This book features a lot of facts, a lot of detailed explanations of complex systems, a lot of physics, some formulas, diagrams, and actual science. Even though this book is written for lay people it is not easy to read and I had to reread and think about some passages before continuing, despite having a degree in physics.

The author explains the so called carbon cycle, how carbon dioxide gets cycled through Earth’s oceans, mantle, the atmosphere, the biosphere, terrestrial soils, and the reservoirs of CO2 stored in each system and the flow absorption/emission between them. The carbon cycle diagram he provides is probably the most informative I’ve seen. One of the smallest emitters in the diagram are volcanoes, which emit about 1% of what we do by burning fossil fuels and is part of the carbon cycle, which has existed long before we did.

He explains how carbon dioxide emissions form a blanket around the Earth, the so called somewhat misnamed greenhouse effect and how it together with Earth’s overall reflectivity determines Earth’s surface temperature, which would have been 33 degrees Celsius (60 Fahrenheit) colder without the gases in our atmosphere. He explains why certain molecules are greenhouse gases, whilst other gases are not. Oxygen and nitrogen are not greenhouse gases, but carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas whilst water vapor acts like a greenhouse gas.

To explain what is going on he invokes the electromagnetic spectrum and thermodynamics, for example, Stefan-Boltzman’s law, he does some math, examines the incoming and outgoing radiation, the absorption of IR radiation in the atmosphere, how carbon dioxide and water vapor absorb radiation at different frequencies and complement each other. For example, carbon dioxide absorbs IR radiation mostly in the 600 to 700 micrometers and water vapor in other frequencies. And by the way water vapor is not a driver behind global warming.

He explains how we can know past carbon dioxide content as well as global temperatures from ice cores going back 800,000 years. He gives us an overview of the science history of the greenhouse effect and global warming. It is hundreds of years old. For example, in 1896 the Swedish chemist/physicist Svante Arrhenius calculated pretty accurate numbers for how much the average global temperature would rise depending on how much carbon dioxide we are emitting, and roughly how the warming would distribute across the globe (not evenly). However, the author points out that calculating the average global temperature rise or environmental damage from the size our emissions is a very complicated task that not even complex models can do perfectly well.

One thing we can calculate very easily and accurately is radiative forcing. Radiative forcing is defined as the change in total radiation power (in watts per square meter) emitted by Earth into space as some quantity like the CO2 abundance. In the formula below C is the abundance of carbon dioxide and C0 is the initial abundance of carbon dioxide, and ln is the natural logarithm and Delta-P is the change in power, again in watts per square meter. (+/- 0.5) is the margin of error.

Radiative forcing Delta-P = 5.35 (+/- 0.5) ln(C/C0) Watts per meter square.

In addition, the book discusses the melting of land ice, Greenland, the different ice sheets in Antarctica, the distribution of temperature changes across Earth and across the atmosphere, potential tipping points, the potential future ill effects of global warming, including future sea level rise from thermal expansion and the melting of land ice (not sea ice). He states that under high emissions CoastalDEM (a study) indicates up to 630 million people live on land below projected annual flood levels for 2100.

In this review it seems like I’ve given a lot of detail regarding the content of the book. However, it is still just a small sample. The book is short, at less than 200 pages, but it has a lot of interesting content, perhaps even in depth content. It is well written and well organized, and Lawrence M. Krauss is a great popularizer of science. I’ve read other physics books by him. By giving some details about the content, I wanted to give potential readers an idea of what to expect and prepare them for the fact that this book is written for laymen at the same time as it is not easy reading. Please read it carefully and try to understand the content. If you can do that then I highly recommend it for you. The book will make you much smarter.

The back cover of The Physics of Climate Change by Lawrence M. Krauss features advance praise for the book. The text is on a purple/reddish/brown background.
The back cover of The Physics of Climate Change by Lawrence M. Krauss. Click on the image to go to the Amazon page for the paperback version of the book.
To see the Super Facts click here

The Sun is not the Cause of the current Global Warming

Superfact 124: The Sun is not the cause of current global warming. According to data from NASA, solar energy output has shown no net increase since the late 1970s. In addition, the amount of solar energy Earth receives has followed the Sun’s natural 11-year cycle of small ups and downs with no net increase. Over the same period, global temperature has risen significantly. The current warming is driven by human-made greenhouse gases, not changes in the Sun.

A thin yellow line graph (on black background) shows the sun’s irradiance fluctuating every 11 year. However, it does not go up overall, but it rather goes down even though the red line graph showing temperature rises sharply. | The Sun is not the Cause of the current Global Warming
Solar irradiance (yellow) plotted with temperature (red) since 1880. NASA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The graph above compares global surface temperature changes (red line) and the Sun’s energy received by Earth (yellow line) in watts (units of energy) per square meter since 1880. The lighter/thinner lines show the yearly levels while the heavier/thicker lines show the 11-year average trends. Eleven-year averages are used to reduce the year-to-year natural noise in the data, making the underlying trends more obvious. You can read more about why the Sun is not the Cause of the current Global Warming, here or here or here.

The sun from space on a dark background. High quality photo.
Elements of this image furnished by NASA. Shutterstock asset id: 2454170413 by Artsiom P

The evidence that the current rapid global warming is chiefly caused by our burning of fossil fuels is extensive and for all practical purposes conclusive. Explaining why no known natural cause for climate change can explain the current warming is just one small piece of the evidence. However, it is one item that people tend to get stuck on. You often hear claims such as “climate has always changed”, “I think it is a natural cause, like the sun”, or “have you ever heard of orbital cycles?”.

Well, as one would expect, the scientists and the experts on past climate, and the scientific organizations around the world, have very carefully investigated whether natural causes could be behind the current rapid warming and we have known for many decades that the answer is no. It is not orbital cycles, it is not the sun, it is not volcanoes, etc. My first post in the series regarding why no known natural cause of climate change can explain the current warming was “Orbital Cycles are not the Cause of the current Global Warming”. This post is about why it can’t be Sun.

The picture shows a bright shining down on planet Earth lighting up the planet a bit. The light from the sun is intense. | The Sun is not the Cause of the current Global Warming
Sun shining down on Earth. Shutterstock asset id: 2709145593 by buradaki

One reason we know that it can’t be orbital cycles causing the current rapid global warming is that orbital cycles operate over tens of thousands of years or hundreds of thousands of years. That is not true for the sun, which has much faster fluctuations. However, it is true for both orbital cycles and the sun that they are not increasing the heat Earth receives. In fact, the effects of Orbital Cycles are slowly cooling Earth, not warming it, and the sun’s energy output has not shown any net increase.

In addition, if the current global warming was the sun or orbital cycles then the upper atmosphere would be warming just like the lower atmosphere, but the upper atmosphere is not warming, it is cooling. That’s an effect that is similar to a blanket holding heat in, which would happen if greenhouse gases were warming the Earth. Add to that the fact that the distribution of temperature increases in time and space matches the way greenhouse gases warm the Earth but does not match the way the sun or orbital cycles would warm the Earth.

A bright white sun is setting over Earth
Sunset from the International Space Station by NASA

I am considering this a super fact because a lot of people have been fooled by disinformation to believe that natural causes are the likely explanation. About 15-20 years ago, I was bamboozled by the disinformation myself. Since this is an important topic and this fact is likely surprising or even challenging to many people, it is a super fact in my opinion.

Understanding a topic and understanding the evidence makes all the difference. Something I had to relearn. That is also why climate scientists are near unanimous around the world over that climate change / global warming is both real and caused by us.

Past Climate the last 150,000 Years

The graph shows the temperature since the last ice age. There is a maximum temperature about 6,000 years ago, then a cooling and then a sharp uptick in temperature.
This graph shows global temperature going back twenty thousand years. Notice the relatively stable temperature during the last 10,000 years, coinciding with the development of human civilization. Also notice the maximum temperature around 6,000 years ago. It is referred to as the Holocene climatic optimum. Finally, notice the sudden sharp increase in temperature at the end. It is depicted in red and is not natural.
The graph shows wild swings over the last 150,000 years and then a very sharp uptick at the end. | The Sun is not the Cause of the current Global Warming
Temperature record for the last 150,000 years. Again, notice the sharp uptick towards the end. This picture is taken from this article.

A Couple of Videos and Links

The video below is a short one-minute overview of the causes behind global warming.

The video below from NASA is a bit longer, 13 minutes, but it gives a more detailed overview. Click here to see the page from where this is coming from.

You can read some more about why it isn’t sun that is causing the current global warming here, and here, or here.

Conclusion

We know that the Sun is not responsible for the current rapid global warming because the Sun’s energy output has shown no net increase since the late 1970s. In addition, the amount of solar energy Earth receives has followed the Sun’s natural 11-year cycle of small ups and downs with no net increase.

We know that Sun is not responsible for the current rapid global warming because if it was the Sun the upper atmosphere would not be cooling and the temperature increases would be distributed differently across Earth and distributed differently with respect to time.

Other super facts related to global warming

To see the other Super Facts click here

Without carbon dioxide the Earth would freeze

Superfact 91: Without greenhouse gases, the Earth’s average surface temperature would drop from the current 15 Celsius (59 Fahrenheit) to approximately -18 Celsius (0 Fahrenheit), which is an average temperature drop of 33 degrees Celsius. If you removed carbon dioxide from the atmosphere but let the other greenhouse gases stay the drop would be 30 degrees Celsius. In both cases most of the planet would freeze. This is referred to as snowball Earth.

Snowball Earth or Snowball planet. In the picture Earth is seen from space. It is covered by ice all over. | Without carbon dioxide the Earth would freeze
Shutterstock Asset id: 2750019199 by Shutterstock AI

Our planet is much warmer than it otherwise would be because of greenhouse gases. Carbon dioxide, or CO2, is the most important of the greenhouse gases. We are rapidly warming the atmosphere with our carbon dioxide emissions as explained by these articles from NASA and NOAA.  If we did the opposite and removed CO2 from the atmosphere we would be cooling the atmosphere. As mentioned, if we removed all greenhouse gases from the atmosphere the planet’s average temperature would drop by 33 degrees Celsius and this NASA article claims it would take 50 years to reach that temperature.

If we removed only carbon dioxide and let all the other greenhouse gases remain, we would get an almost as big temperature drop of 30 degrees Celsius according to the calculations done by this article. Some of you may know that water vapor provides a larger portion of the warming than CO2. In fact, 75% of the greenhouse effect is caused by water vapor and clouds. This seems contradictory. However, when the atmosphere cools, the water vapor will rain out of the atmosphere unlike CO2. Basically, water vapor will adjust to the temperature whilst CO2 is  forcing the temperature. It is crucial to understand this difference. That is why CO2 is the most important greenhouse gas. In summary, we need just the right amount of CO2 for a healthy climate.

I consider this a super fact because it is true, it is an important fact, and I believe it is a surprising fact to many, especially those who doubt carbon dioxide’s importance to the global warming we are experiencing. I called it global warming but whether you call it global warming, climate change, or climate disruption, we are talking about the same thing.

Snowball Earth

Mountains covered by ice and snow and valleys covered by a thick ice sheet.
Shutterstock Asset id: 2749007159 by Shutterstock AI

Scientists believe there have been at least two major “Snowball Earth” events between 720 and 635 million years ago where ice and snow covered nearly the entire planet. These snowball earth events were triggered by natural events, likely a plunge in sunlight, followed by a plunge in carbon dioxide not entering the atmosphere, and amplified by sunlight reflecting back into space. All three effects made Earth cooler. The recent ice ages were likely caused primarily by earth’s orbital cycles. Climate changed in the past due to natural phenomena, but that does not mean that the current very rapid warming (rapid geologically speaking) is natural.

If you want to understand why we can be so sure that it is our CO2 emissions that is causing the current global warming, not the sun, not volcanoes, not orbital cycles, and not another natural process, please check out the list of evidence in the second part of this post “Global Warming is Happening and is Caused by us”.

Hothouse Venus

What we see in the photo is a large white smooth planet. The MESSENGER spacecraft snapped a series of images as it approached Venus on June 5, 2007. The planet is enshrouded by a global layer of clouds that obscures its surface to the MESSENGER Dual Imaging System (MDIS) cameras. This single frame is part of a color sequence taken that helped the MESSENGER team calibrate the camera in preparation for the spacecraft's first flyby of Mercury on January 14, 2008.
Image taken by the NASA MESSENGER as it approached Venus on June 5, 2007. NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. The image is taken from this Wikipedia article.

The opposite of snowball Earth is hot Venus. Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system due to an extreme runaway greenhouse effect. Surface temperatures are averaging around 465 degrees Celsius (870 degrees Fahrenheit). The thick atmosphere of Venus is composed primarily of carbon dioxide with clouds of sulfuric acid. This causes a greenhouse effect that traps heat.

Despite the fact that Mercury is much closer to the sun (58 million kilometers versus 108 million kilometers) and receives nearly four times as much sunlight per unit area than Venus, Mercury is on average much cooler. The reason is that Mercury’s atmosphere is thin and without a greenhouse effect.

The YouTube video below from NASA explains the greenhouse effect on Venus. It is just one minute long.

I would also like you to take a look at this post:, “The Greenhouse Effect: From Early Chemistry to the Keeling Curve” by Craigavad miscellany a science blog written by a retired academic. It is a very educational and interesting post related to this topic.

To see the Other Super Facts click here