Part 7: Climate: How Can We Predict Change? Introduction] (pp. 291-294)
Climate, a word used as long ago as the time of the ancient Greeks, was formerly understood as a local phenomenon, the climate of a place. Only recently has its meaning changed to refer to global climate, mainly defined as global mean temperature, to which local climates contribute only partially. Carbon dioxide has played a major role in this globalization of climate, from early theorizing about atmospheric chemistry in the nineteenth century, to measuring the concentration of this gas throughout the entire atmosphere encircling the earth. Carbon dioxide is now seen as playing a major role in steering the climate...“On the Transmission of Heat” (1859) (pp. 295-302)
JOHN TYNDALL and MIKE HULME
Some analogies between sound and light were first pointed out: a spectrum from the electric light was thrown upon a screen—the spectrum was to the eye what an orchestra was to the ear—the different colours were analogous to notes of different pitch. But beyond the visible spectrum in both directions there were rays which excited no impression of light. Those at the red end excited heat, and the reason why they failed to excite light probably was that they never reached the retina at all. This followed from the experiments of Brücke and Knoblauch.
“On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground” (1896) (pp. 303-315) SVANTE ARRHENIUS and SVERKER SÖRLIN
A great deal has been written on the influence of the absorption of the atmosphere upon the climate. Tyndall in particular has pointed out the enormous importance of this question. To him it was chiefly the diurnal and annual variations of the temperature that were lessened by this circumstance. Another side of the question, that has long attracted the attention of physicists, is this: Is the mean temperature of the ground in any way influenced by the presence of heat-absorbing gases in the atmosphere? Fourier maintained that the atmosphere acts like the glass of a hot-house, because it lets through...
“Seasonal Foreshadowing” (1930) (pp. 316-326)
GILBERT T. WALKER and NEVILLE NICHOLLS
Statistical methods have been applied to the discovery of relationships between weather in many parts of the world, but although the number of coefficients worked out is of the order of ten thousand, satisfactory formulae for predicting the character of seasons have been worked out in very few countries. An effort was made by the author in 1908 in connection with the monsoon rainfall of India and Australia and the Nile floods, and methods promising greater reliability have since been developed for the summer and winter rainfall...
“The Artificial Production of Carbon Dioxide and Its Influence on Temperature” (1938) (pp. 327-336) G. S. CALLENDAR and JAMES RODGER FLEMING
By fuel combustion man has added about 150,000 million tons of carbon dioxide to the air during the past half century. The author estimates from the best available data that approximately three quarters of this has remained in the atmosphere.
The radiation absorption coefficients of carbon dioxide and water vapour are used to show the effect of carbon dioxide on “sky radiation.” From this the increase in mean temperature, due to the artificial production of carbon dioxide, is estimated to be at the rate of 0.003°C per year at the present time.
The temperature observations at 200 meteorological stations are used to show that world teperatures have actualle icreased at an average rate of 0,005 C per year during the past half century.
“Unpleasant Surprises in the Greenhouse?” (1987) and (pp. 337-347)
WALLACE S. BROECKER (515 publikationer researchgate) and TOM GRIFFITHS
The inhabitants of planet Earth are quietly conducting a gigantic environmental experiment. So vast and so sweeping will be the consequences that, were it brought before any responsible council for approval, it would be firmly rejected. Yet it goes on with little interference from any jurisdiction or nation. The experiment in question is the release of CO2and other so-called ‘greenhouse gases’ to the atmosphere. Because these releases are largely by-products of energy and food production, we have little choice but to let the experiment continue. We can perhaps slow its pace by eliminating frivolous production and by making more efficient use of energy from fossil fuels. But beyond this we ca only prepare ourselves to cope with its effects.
“Climate and Atmospheric History of the Past 420,000 Years from the Vostok Ice Core, Antarctica” (researchgate, 3614 citeringar) (1999) (pp. 348-362)
J. R. PETIT (Rg), J. JOUZEL, D. RAYNAUD and TOM GRIFFITHS
The recent completion of drilling at Vostok station in East Antarctica has allowed the extension of the ice record of atmospheric composition and climate to the past four glacial–interglacial cycles. The succession of changes through each climate cycle and termination was similar, and atmospheric and climate properties oscillated between stable bounds. Interglacial periods differed in temporal evolution and duration. Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane correlate well with Antarctic air-temperature throughout the record. Present-day atmospheric burdens of these two important greenhouse gases seem to have been unprecedented during the past 420,000 years. The late Quaternary period (the...
“Seasonal Foreshadowing” (1930) (pp. 316-326)
GILBERT T. WALKER and NEVILLE NICHOLLS
Statistical methods have been applied to the discovery of relationships between weather in many parts of the world, but although the number of coefficients worked out is of the order of ten thousand, satisfactory formulae for predicting the character of seasons have been worked out in very few countries. An effort was made by the author in 1908 in connection with the monsoon rainfall of India and Australia and the Nile floods, and methods promising greater reliability have since been developed for the summer and winter rainfall...
“The Artificial Production of Carbon Dioxide and Its Influence on Temperature” (1938) (pp. 327-336) G. S. CALLENDAR and JAMES RODGER FLEMING
By fuel combustion man has added about 150,000 million tons of carbon dioxide to the air during the past half century. The author estimates from the best available data that approximately three quarters of this has remained in the atmosphere.
The radiation absorption coefficients of carbon dioxide and water vapour are used to show the effect of carbon dioxide on “sky radiation.” From this the increase in mean temperature, due to the artificial production of carbon dioxide, is estimated to be at the rate of 0.003°C per year at the present time.
The temperature observations at 200 meteorological stations are used to show that world teperatures have actualle icreased at an average rate of 0,005 C per year during the past half century.
“Unpleasant Surprises in the Greenhouse?” (1987) and (pp. 337-347)
WALLACE S. BROECKER (515 publikationer researchgate) and TOM GRIFFITHS
The inhabitants of planet Earth are quietly conducting a gigantic environmental experiment. So vast and so sweeping will be the consequences that, were it brought before any responsible council for approval, it would be firmly rejected. Yet it goes on with little interference from any jurisdiction or nation. The experiment in question is the release of CO2and other so-called ‘greenhouse gases’ to the atmosphere. Because these releases are largely by-products of energy and food production, we have little choice but to let the experiment continue. We can perhaps slow its pace by eliminating frivolous production and by making more efficient use of energy from fossil fuels. But beyond this we ca only prepare ourselves to cope with its effects.
“Climate and Atmospheric History of the Past 420,000 Years from the Vostok Ice Core, Antarctica” (researchgate, 3614 citeringar) (1999) (pp. 348-362)
J. R. PETIT (Rg), J. JOUZEL, D. RAYNAUD and TOM GRIFFITHS
The recent completion of drilling at Vostok station in East Antarctica has allowed the extension of the ice record of atmospheric composition and climate to the past four glacial–interglacial cycles. The succession of changes through each climate cycle and termination was similar, and atmospheric and climate properties oscillated between stable bounds. Interglacial periods differed in temporal evolution and duration. Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane correlate well with Antarctic air-temperature throughout the record. Present-day atmospheric burdens of these two important greenhouse gases seem to have been unprecedented during the past 420,000 years. The late Quaternary period (the...
Part 8: Diversity: Why Do We Need It, and Can We Conserve It? Introduction] (pp. 363-366)
In Part 8 we explore ideas about global life systems and the biological sciences that inform their management. Cultural diversity also has been an important principle of global change thinking, and has recently been intertwined in current management discussions. In this part, the focus is mostly onbiologicaldiversity (and after 1986, “biodiversity”) as diversity has emerged as a key concept in reorganizing nature conservation historically on a global scale in the postwar years.
Approaches to nature in the eighteenth century were often highly local: one study of the nature of a single parish in southern England was Gilbert White’s...
The Invaders (1958) (pp. 367-380)
CHARLES S. ELTON (Britannica) and LIBBY ROBIN
Nowadays we live in a very explosive world, and while we may not know where or when the next outburst will be, we might hope to find ways of stopping it or at any rate damping down its force. It is not just nuclear bombs and wars that threaten us, though these rank very high on the list at the moment: there are other sorts of explosions, and this book is about ecological explosions. An ecological explosion means the enormous increase in numbers of some kind of living organism—it may be an infectious virus like influenza, or...
The Forestry Projections and the Environment: Global-Scale Environmental Impacts (1980)
(pp. 381-390) (The Global 2000 report to the President of the United States, 815 sidor, "Forest projections..." Vi läser fyra (!?) sidor av dessa: 327-331). MARK V. BARROW JR.
The second global change implied by the forestry projections is a significant reduction in biotic diversity. The extent to which the diversity of the flora and fauna is maintained provides a basic index to the ecological health of the planet. Presently the world’s biota contains an estimated 3–10 million species. Until the present century, the number of species extinguished as a result of human activities was small, and the species so affected were regarded as curiosities. Between now and 2000, however, the number of extinctions caused by human activities will increase rapidly. Loss of wild habitat may be the...
“What Is Conservation Biology?” (1985) (Jstore) (Conservation biology)(pp. 391-408)
MICHAEL E. SOULÉ and LIBBY ROBIN
Conservation biology, a new stage in the application of science to conservation problems, addresses the biology of species, communities, and ecosystems that are perturbed, either directly or indirectly, by human activities or other agents. Its goal is to provide principles and tools for preserving biological diversity. In this article I describe conservation biology, define its fundamental propositions, and note a few of its contributions. I also point out that ethical norms are a genuine part of conservation biology, as they are in all mission- or crisis-oriented disciplines.
Conservation biology differs from most other biological sciences in one important way:...
“Radical American Environmentalism and Wilderness Preservation: A Third World Critique” (1997) (pp. 409-432) (ung samma text 1989)
RAMACHANDRA GUHA and ROB NIXON
The respected radical journalist Kirkpatrick Sale has celebrated “the passion of a new and growing movement that has become disenchanted with the environmental establishment and has in recent years mounted a serious and sweeping attack on it—style, substance, systems, sensibilities and all” (Sale 1986: 26). The vision of those whom Sale calls the “New Ecologists”—and what I refer to in this chapter as deep ecology—is a compelling one. Decrying the narrowly economic goals of mainstream environmentalism, this new movement aims at nothing less than a philosophical and cultural revolution in human attitudes towards nature. In contrast to...
CHARLES S. ELTON (Britannica) and LIBBY ROBIN
Nowadays we live in a very explosive world, and while we may not know where or when the next outburst will be, we might hope to find ways of stopping it or at any rate damping down its force. It is not just nuclear bombs and wars that threaten us, though these rank very high on the list at the moment: there are other sorts of explosions, and this book is about ecological explosions. An ecological explosion means the enormous increase in numbers of some kind of living organism—it may be an infectious virus like influenza, or...
The Forestry Projections and the Environment: Global-Scale Environmental Impacts (1980)
(pp. 381-390) (The Global 2000 report to the President of the United States, 815 sidor, "Forest projections..." Vi läser fyra (!?) sidor av dessa: 327-331). MARK V. BARROW JR.
The second global change implied by the forestry projections is a significant reduction in biotic diversity. The extent to which the diversity of the flora and fauna is maintained provides a basic index to the ecological health of the planet. Presently the world’s biota contains an estimated 3–10 million species. Until the present century, the number of species extinguished as a result of human activities was small, and the species so affected were regarded as curiosities. Between now and 2000, however, the number of extinctions caused by human activities will increase rapidly. Loss of wild habitat may be the...
“What Is Conservation Biology?” (1985) (Jstore) (Conservation biology)(pp. 391-408)
MICHAEL E. SOULÉ and LIBBY ROBIN
Conservation biology, a new stage in the application of science to conservation problems, addresses the biology of species, communities, and ecosystems that are perturbed, either directly or indirectly, by human activities or other agents. Its goal is to provide principles and tools for preserving biological diversity. In this article I describe conservation biology, define its fundamental propositions, and note a few of its contributions. I also point out that ethical norms are a genuine part of conservation biology, as they are in all mission- or crisis-oriented disciplines.
Conservation biology differs from most other biological sciences in one important way:...
“Radical American Environmentalism and Wilderness Preservation: A Third World Critique” (1997) (pp. 409-432) (ung samma text 1989)
RAMACHANDRA GUHA and ROB NIXON
The respected radical journalist Kirkpatrick Sale has celebrated “the passion of a new and growing movement that has become disenchanted with the environmental establishment and has in recent years mounted a serious and sweeping attack on it—style, substance, systems, sensibilities and all” (Sale 1986: 26). The vision of those whom Sale calls the “New Ecologists”—and what I refer to in this chapter as deep ecology—is a compelling one. Decrying the narrowly economic goals of mainstream environmentalism, this new movement aims at nothing less than a philosophical and cultural revolution in human attitudes towards nature. In contrast to...
2 kommentarer:
En rad gamla auktoriteter som färgat dagens beslutsfattande gör troligt att Biodiversiteten i den boreala svenska skogen utarmas... Jag som inte grubblat på annat än skogsträden till för åtta år sedan när jag började grubbla på resten, finner att det knappast går att säga generellt påstå att biodiversiteten utarmats i den nordiska boreala skogen sedan 2000 och att dagens beslutsfattare är för exponerade och påverkade av den oron.
Jag tycker vi skall fortsätta att bry oss, och det kanske också finns en viss "skuld" att återbetala pga av för låg prioritering på "naturen" före 1990. T ex: det räcker inte med att rödlistan inte försämras jämfört med 2010, procentantalet av alla skogsarter som enligt rödlistan var hotade 2010 bör marginellt förbättras de närmaste decennierna för att få kvitto på att naturvården funkar tillräckligt bra.
Men att stoppa avverkningar på stora ytor för att skydda tjäder och lavskrika är att gå till överdrift.
Tack för feedback! Jag är inte på långa vägar så kompetent som du när det gäller rödlistade arter, vill bara i generellt att vi har "kvar den biologiska mångfalden". På något sätt borde problematiken kring "Klimat och mångfald" tydliggöras på ett enkelt sätt. Men är det möjligt?
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