Two readings for Tuesday: ozone, broader impacts of warming, and some resources

Hey guys, we talked about the Montreal Protocol and ozone depletion and we'd like you to read this article on the history of the debate about ozone depletion for next Tuesday. Also there is a FAQ about ozone depletion that has some good information about where and when ozone is depleted, and what the effects of ozone depletion are.

Also, we had some trouble getting the discussion of global warming beyond US GDP today. Read this article/site that goes into other effects of climate change. For discussion, read the frames entitled "How much will it warm up", "Dangerous Impacts", "Regional Impacts", and "Conclusion." It might help us frame a broader view so we can narrow down to write our papers. The other sections are good review and expansion on the material we had in class, and talk a lot about risk analysis in the context of global warming, so you might find those sections interesting as well. The main section of the site has information on global warming that you might find useful.

If you have questions about these things, or comments, email one of us, and/or post your comment to the blog. Take care, M.

Hi Folks,

The "command-and-control" vs. market-based regulation debate rages on! The Bush admistration is in favor of cap-and-trade methods, but old regulations require expensive emissions control equipment. The courts have sometimes ruled in favor of Bush's plans, and recently against them. Here's a Wall Street Journal article that outlines the debate.

JC
http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB114308122241005963.html

Climate Change Resources

Hey guys, I thought I'd put together a few resources for climate change. If you want a single place to go to see an archive of climate information, check climatewire.org, particularly the section on archived articles. The EPA website on global warming has some decent information as well. For our purposes, check the climate section. If you want to get into less filtered data, check NOAA's Geophysical Fluids Dynamics Laboratory's climate site.

One of the best places to get information on climate models, and climate in general is the Hadley Centre. If you want to know more about how climate is predicted, or to even run your own climate models and scenarios, start here. This page gives an excellent overview of model predictions. If you want to get into the nitty-gritty of the model, check some of the carbon cycle models.

The central clearing house for world science on climate change is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC Data Distribution Center has lots of imformation on scenarios for warming, predictions, etc. It has a lot of interactive data viewers for past climate and predicted climate. A great resource!

Readings for Climate Change Section

Hey guys, we'll be starting on climate change this week with a lecture on basic climatology on Tuesday and then on global climate change on Thursday. Here is a series of three articles by Elizabeth Kolbert from the New Yorker last year that provide an entry-point into global climate change. We'll get more technical articles out as we get more up to speed. I'd try and get through part one on the arctic and the study of climate change and part two on climate and ancient civilizations by Thursday or so. Part three treats differing ideas about what is to be done about climate change, and you might want to read that as well as you start to frame your upcoming papers later in the week.

After we get a little basic climatology under our belt we can hit the primary literature, which is a lot of fun!