ENV 13 : Climate Change

What do we mean by adaptation?

Adaptation = initiatives and measures to reduce the vulnerability of natural and human systems against actual or expected climate change effects.

Air Pollution

Ground-level ozone formation: Higher Temperatures accelerate the rate of smog formation and thus ozone, which is a byproduct of smog.

What do we mean by mitigation?

Mitigation = interventions to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases

Since congress can't get anything done on climate change, where have we seen progress in legislative action to combat climate change?

We have seen progress in legislative action to combat climate change in 2007 when the Supreme Court ruled that carbon dioxide s Clean Air Act pollutant and that the EPA has power to regulate. Also, in 2015, EPA released a final rule to limit greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants, all under the Clean Air Act limiting emissions of carbon dioxide from coal and natural gas fired power plants.

What is the evidence that human activity is leading to global warming? Be able to give a couple of examples.

1st. Today, there is lots of cattle farms produce lots of methane! 2nd. Carbon dioxide (CO2), Methane (CH4) and Nitrous Oxide (N2O) concentrations far exceed pre-industrial values and have increased a lot since the 1750s due to human activities with relatively little variation before the industrial era. 3rd. Paleo-climatic evidence to show changes over the past 1,000 years in that carbon emissions increases as fossil fuel emissions increase, both dramatically since the industrial revolution - directly increases the global average surface temperature. 4th. Latest CO2 reading is 403.98 PPM in the air (as of December 8th, 2016) 5th. Increase of anthropogenic greenhouse pollutants since the 1950s is causing the ongoing warming trend. Most of the warmest years on record have occurred in the past 20 years or so.

Waterborne Diseases

- 2/3 of US waterborne disease outbreaks are almost always followed after heavy precipitations

Heat Waves

- major cause of death, hospitalizations, and illness. - ex: July 1995 Chicago - 700+ deaths - ex: in 2015, over 2500 people died in the heat wave in India - farm livestock also perished

What are the six greenhouse gases of great concern?

1. Carbon dioxide 2. Ozone 3. Nitrous Oxide 4. Methane 5. Water Vapor 6. Halocarbons

Two Step Process used to study climate health impacts:

1. Epidemiological Approach: study and quantify historical relationships between climate-related "exposures" and human health outcomes. Goal: to identify and quantify "exposure-response" relationships. 2. Health Impact Assessment Approach: to predict future health impacts by modeling future climate-related exposures and assuming historical exposure-response relationships will still operate. It provides answers to "what if?" Questions.

Describe four mitigation strategies for Climate change.

1. Greenhouse gas laws/regulations (mandatory) 2. Energy efficiency 3. Relying more on renewable energy sources 4. Reducing other greenhouse gases from industry, agriculture, waste management

What are the 4 key elements/strategies for preparedness?

1. Identifying vulnerabilities ▪Physical environment (low SES communities) ▪Demographic (old people) 2. Tracking ▪ Disease ▪ Zoonotic ▪ Environmental conditions 3. Climate-Smart design ▪Communities ▪Buildings 4. Public Education ▪preparedness

Five examples of evidence that are consistent that global warming is happening

1. Surface temperatures are increasing 2. Sea level is rising (8" in the past 50 years for America coastline) 3. Glaciers are melting (polar caps) 4. Extreme weather - droughts and hurricanes (California's drought is in its 5th year and heavy seasonal precipitations) 5. Extreme heat (2 degree increase in Fahrenheit temperature in past 50 years)

What health effects will be exacerbated by climate change?

1. Temperature-related illness and death (great heat wave in Chicago 1995) 2. Extreme weather-related health effects (extreme storms) 3. Air pollution-related health effects (Ozone and asthma) 4. Water and food-born diseases (Dengue and Zika) 5. Food and water supply (famine and droughts) 6. Mental, nutritional, infectious, and other health effects (heat stress and allergies)

QUESTION: Who is charge of setting limits on carbon pollution?

Answer: EPA

QUESTION: By reducing GHG emissions now, we can stop further global warming within a decade or two.

Answer: FALSE, no because even if we stop now it will still continue to go on

Dengue

Dengue fever is moving more north due to global warming causing the mosquito habitat to flourish and spread

Important issue for understanding the potential impacts of climate change is the long lifetime of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere:

CO2 can take more than 100 years to come to equilibrium once it is emitted. So, the Earth is committed to several decades of climate change after stabilization of greenhouse gas emissions is achieved. The sea level will continue to rise for more than 1000 years as the ocean continue to warm up because of the processes involved in stabilization.

Allergies

Increase in pollen in the air over the years as a result of increasing levels of carbon dioxide (since plants take in CO2)

the greenhouse effect

•Sun's radiation goes through Earth's atmosphere and to the surface of the earth. •Most of the radiation is absorbed by the Earth's surface, warming it up. •Both the Earth and the atmosphere reflect some of the Sun's radiation back out into space. •Radiation that was absorbed at the surface is re-radiated back out by Earth, however, this radiation is now in the infrared spectrum. •Normally, the earth's atmosphere is less transparent to infrared radiation than it is to visible light radiation. •Because of this, greenhouse gas molecules in the atmosphere (which include water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, halocarbons, and ozone) absorb the outgoing infrared (heat) radiation and re-emit it. •When this happens, the Earth surface is further warmed up and lowers the atmosphere. •The greenhouse effect is critical to life on Earth. Without it, Earth would be colder than present and the daily temperature range would increase dramatically.

Know about "inertia" and how it will affect future climate change:

▪For the next 2 decades, a warming of about 0.2 degree Celsius per decade is projected for a range of greenhouse gas emission scenarios. ▪Even if the concentrations of all the greenhouse gases and aerosols never rose above year 2000 levels, a further warming of about 0.1 degree Celsius per decade would be expected due interia. (these gases are there and will linger around) ▪Earlier IPCC projections of 0.15 to 0.3 degree Celsius per decade can now be compared with observed values of 0.2 degree Celsius. (this model have been behaving well and reliable) ▪The recorded data is showing that we are doing WORSE than the worse possible. (Land areas are projected to warm more than the oceans with the greatest warming at high latitudes)

Know the workings of the NY Climate and Health Project. In the future, what will affect mortality more, ozone or heat?

○New York Climate and Health Project - funded by the EPA, examines potential public health impacts of health and air pollution under alternative scenarios of climate change and regional land use in the 2020s, 2050s, 2080s for NYC. ■Predicting Ozone alert days ■Summer heat-related mortality could double by 2050s, without further prevention measures. ■Summer ozone-related mortality could increase slightly, but it depends on pollution controls ■So heat will impact mortality more than ozone will. ■Also, there will be more frequent severe storms.

Describe some environmental changes that were predicted as a result of climate change that are already happening (drought in west for example) and a couple of examples of future events. (Be specific)

● There is more warming in the north hemisphere of earth because there is more land and land tends to absorb energy. This is why the Arctic and Greenland are melting faster. ● High latitudes has more land mass than low latitudes and so they are projected to warm up more --- this is why the ice sheets of the polar caps are melting. ● When ice melts, sea level rises! (Ex: NYC's sea level has risen steadily and Norfolk, VA has seen over 14" increase in sea level) ● Environmental Refugees: Bangladesh is at sea level with increasing risk for floods, could displace tens of millions of people, due to sea level rise and heavy rainfall events. Bangladesh is projected to lose ~ 17% of its land area with a meter of sea level rise, making it very difficult to adapt due to lack of adaptive capacity. Another country at risk of being under sea is the Marshall Islands!