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Smokestacks at an industrial plant.

Global Warming
Charles F. Keller

Introduction
Global warming is in the news. While scientists agree that
temperatures are rising, they disagree as to the causes and the
rate of change. How much will temperatures rise, and how
soon, and what will be the effects? There’s a lot we still don’t
understand, because climate is enormously complicated. So are
the factors that make the Earth habitable, of which temperature
is only one. For example, certain types of air pollution cool the
atmosphere and thus might act as agents to offset global
warming, but they also make the air hard to breathe. Because
Charles F. Keller is the Center Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory branch of the University of
California’s Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics.
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climate change is so complex, scientists are
using all kinds of scientific data and models to
try to figure out what’s actually happening.
In 1957, noted climatologist Roger Ravelle
described the possibility of global warming from
burning of fossil fuels. “Human beings are now
carrying out a large-scale geophysical
experiment of a kind that could not have
happened in the past nor be reproduced in the
future. Within a few centuries we are returning
to the atmosphere and oceans the
concentrated organic carbon stored in
sedimentary rocks over hundreds of millions of
years…”
Ravelle also encouraged climatologist Charles
Keeling to measure carbon dioxide levels in the
atmosphere. The resulting so-called Keeling
Curve dramatically illustrates the rise of CO2
above pre-industrial levels, a rise confirmed by
measurements of the gases trapped in the thick
layers of ice built up over thousands of years on
Greenland and Antarctica (Figure 1). Perhaps
more than anything else, this documented
atmospheric increase in CO2, a powerful
greenhouse gas (GHG), has served to bring
home the possibility of humans warming the
climate. The rise in CO2 is largely due to the
burning of fossil fuels. In fact, this rise makes
warming a certainty since the physics is well
understood and GHG warming is an obser-
vational fact. (For more information on the
carbon cycle, read Rachel Oxburgh’s essay,
“Earth: The Goldilocks Planet,” in Section Six)
A Word About the So-called
“Greenhouse Effect”
The Sun is hot, and shines most of its light in
short-wavelength visible radiation (violet, blue,
green, yellow, orange, and red). The Earth
responds by absorbing some of this visible
radiation, heating up, and irradiating energy
back to space in the form of longer-wavelength,
invisible infrared rays. Most of the gases in the
Figure 1: Atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide
compared with fossil fuel emissions. The graphs show the
rise in greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere since the
industrial revolution in the mid-1800s.
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Earth’s atmosphere allow both kinds of radiation
to pass through relatively freely, but a few,
called Greenhouse Gases (GHGs), pass the
incoming visible radiation but absorb outgoing
infrared radiation. This further heats the lower
atmosphere and surface of the Earth, much the
way sunlight “trapped” inside the glass of a
florist’s greenhouse warms the space within.
Water in the Atmosphere, or Why the
Earth is Warm
The main natural greenhouse gases are water
vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane. Water
vapor is the most significant, and without it the
average global temperature would be well below
freezing. Humans have been adding increasing
amounts of methane and CO2 to the
atmosphere over the past 100 years. When
these human-produced greenhouse gases warm
the planet, evaporation increases, and more
and more water vapor is introduced into the
atmosphere. Where in the atmosphere this
Figure 2: This graph shows the relationship between oxygen
isotope levels measured from ice cores and global ice
volume during the last 500,000 years.
additional water vapor goes and what kinds of
clouds it forms strongly influence how much
additional warming is caused. These kinds of
uncertainties make it hard to predict the effect
of human-produced GHGs on global warming.
Much about the relationship between global
temperature and GHG levels remains unclear.
Climate in the Distant Past
The record of global temperatures for the past
half million years can be derived from ice and
sediment cores (Figure 2). Scientists use a
variety of records to reconstruct past climate.
Ice cores drilled from polar glaciers provide the
most detailed record, in the form of layers of
dust, chemicals, and gases which have been
deposited with snow over hundreds of
thousands of years. These layers reveal past
climate characteristics, and many of their
potential causes. (See Paul A. Mayewski’s essay
on the ice core record, in this section.)
The record clearly shows that our present warm
climate is relatively rare. Most of the time the
Earth likes to be much colder than it is now.
The record of the past 11,000 years or so, the
period of time in which civilization arose, shows
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GLOBAL WARMING

Figure 3: Measured global surface temperatures relative to the CO2-induced warming is occurring on top of
average since 1860. Note the dramatic rise in temperature
what might appear to have been a natural
during the 30-year period between 1961 and 1990.
cooling. This is a complex interaction, and
that the Earth has been in a warm period, but scientists don’t understand it well enough to
also shows a slight but noticeable decrease in know how the combination will play out. (For
global temperatures. This is thought to be due more information on the orbital cycles of
largely to the combined effect of the wobble of Earth, read the profile on Milutin Milankovitch
the Earth’s rotational axis and its elliptical orbit. in this section.)
The seasons are caused by the fact that the
The Strangely-Shaped Temperature Record
Earth’s rotation axis is tilted with respect to the
of the Twentieth Century
plane of its orbit around the Sun. Over
The last hundred years have seen temperatures
thousands of years the direction that this
rise to levels not experienced on a global scale
rotation axis points changes. In addition, the
for over a thousand years (Figure 3). As
Earth’s orbit around the Sun is not a circle, but
predicted, the twentieth century rise generally
is slightly elliptical, causing its distance from the
coincides with the rise in human-produced GHGs
Sun to change during the year. Since the
in the atmosphere. However, while GHGs have
Northern Hemisphere (NH) has most of the land
increased at a steady rate, the actual
surface, it warms more for the same amount of
temperature record fluctuates far more widely,
sunlight than the ocean-dominated Southern
as Figure 3 shows.
Hemisphere. Thus, when NH summer occurs as
the Earth is closest to the Sun, the climate is The warming can be divided into six parts:
warmer, and 11,500 years later when NH
1. cool temperatures until 1920
summer occurs farthest from the Sun, the
2. rapid warming from 1920–1940
climate is cooler. Some 11,000 years ago, NH
3. slight cooling from 1940–1970
summer was closest to the Sun, but since then
4. rapid warming from 1970–1985
the rotation axis direction has been continuously
5. slight warming from 1985–1997
changing until NH summer is occurring near the
6. large warming in 1998
point in its orbit farthest from the Sun. Thus, the
last 11,000 years have witnessed a small but If climate warmed simply in response to
steady decline in global temperatures. Recent increases in GHG, the temperature increase
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would be smooth, and it is not. Climatologists
have been working to explain this strangely-
shaped temperature record.
GHGs, Aerosols, and Solar Activity
Because so many variables affect climate, it’s
difficult to establish a firm correlation between
human activity (human produced GHG) and
warming temperatures. The challenge is to
establish whether a natural pattern exists, and
then to determine what constitutes a departure
from that pattern. Fortunately, the picture is
becoming clearer. At least three separate
computer simulations indicated not only that
human-produced GHG had increased, but also
that the effects of industrial aerosols had to be
taken into account. (A byproduct of industrial
pollution, these fine particles in the atmosphere
actually cause cooling by scattering sunlight
back into space.) These simulations have begun
to explain the strangely-shaped temperature
record. In particular, they have shown
quantitatively why the global climate cooled
between 1940 and 1974, when industrial air
pollution was substantial, even as CO2 levels
steadily rose. In 1974, the U.S. Congress
enacted the Clean Air Act, which resulted in a
dramatic decrease in air pollution, at least by
industry in the United States. Temperatures
rose. For the first time, it was apparent that air
pollution could scatter enough sunlight back
into space to slow down the GHG warming, at
least temporarily.
Computer simulations have become an
extremely useful tool, but they still could not
entirely account for the rapid temperature
increase between 1920 and 1940. These have
since been largely attributed to increases in
solar activity in the form of sunspots.
While all three factors—GHGs, aerosols, and
solar activity—have been operative to a lesser
or greater extent over the past hundred or
more years, the first rise (1920–1940) was
largely due to increased solar activity, the
leveling and slight decline (1940–1970) was
caused by air pollution and perhaps a slight
decline in solar activity, and the rise after 1975
is an increasingly clear signal of the effect of
human-produced GHG. Between 1985 and
1997, however, temperatures have only risen
slightly. This plateau effect is not fully
understood, but increasing worldwide air
pollution may be the reason; both the extremely
rapid industrialization of the developing
countries and the massive burning of forests
produce light-scattering aerosols. In 1998,
effects of a strong El Niño were linked to a
large temperature increase, causing speculation
that human GHGs were amplifying the lesser
warming effect of the El Niño. (See Mark A.
Cane’s essay, in this section.)
Computer Models of Climate
Current computer models of the climate are
becoming dramatically more accurate
predictors of global warming. One example is
the prediction of the global cooling and
subsequent temperature rebound due to natural
aerosols injected into the stratosphere by the
eruption of Mount Pinatubo (a volcano in the
Philippines) in 1991. These aerosols took four
years to dissipate, during which time they
reduced sunlight reaching the Earth’s surface
and lower atmosphere.
What the Models Predict for Warming in
the Twenty-first Century
The latest computer models show that detailed
prediction of warming in the twenty-first century
due to human-produced GHGs will be difficult,
because of the potentially large variations in
aerosols and dust in the atmosphere, and
unknown changes in solar activity. At the current
rate of use of fossil fuel, it seems likely that CO2
in the atmosphere could double, relative to
pre-industrial levels, by the year 2050. Most
computer models agree that such an increase
could cause a temperature rise of some 2°C.
The current uncertainties only heighten our
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concern, because while consequences might be
fairly benign, they could also be disastrous to
both humans and all other living things.
Potential Impacts of Global Warming
During the summer of 1999, the eastern half of
the United States experienced weeks of above
90s temperatures combined with extremely high
humidity and severe droughts. This led several
states to ration both water and electrical energy
(due to increased demand to run air
conditioners). The number of people whose
deaths could be attributed directly to this
massive heat wave was over 200. This scenario
is an example of what we might expect in the
twenty-first century as human emissions of
greenhouse gases cause additional global
warming. While a rise in temperature of about
2°C may not seem great, that rise is an
average over the entire Earth for an entire year.
What we really expect is much larger departures
from the normal temperatures in smaller
regions of the Earth (half a continent) for
shorter times (a month or less). These may be
quite severe, and it is their effects that cause
us concern. From such events, we expect
problems such as: reduced crop yields due to
droughts, extreme storms as the Earth
attempts to “cool off,” local outbreaks of insect
infestation or insect-borne diseases such as
malaria and dengue fever, and freak weather
events such as massive ice storms rather
than ordinary snowfall. Another example is
sea level rise, which is predicted to be less than
a meter. While that rise will be enough to cause
problems with low-lying areas, another
potentially larger impact may be that tidal
surges, amplified by storms, will be much
larger and more devastating as they breach
natural dune barriers and cause destruction
farther inland.
International Response
Recognizing that early detection of possible
human-produced GHG warming of the Earth was
GLOBAL WARMING
an important but politically problematic issue,
the United Nations and the World Meteorological
Organization formed the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988. Made
up of scientists from most nations, its task has
been to assess the amount of potential
warming. Scientists generally agree that
organizations like the IPCC are the best way to
achieve a responsible assessment of such
emotionally charged issues.
The IPCC’s first reports in 1990 indicated that
humans were probably causing some global
warming, but that nothing could be said for
certain. But in its 1995 report, the IPCC
changed its position ever so slightly and caused
quite a stir. In the summary statement it wrote:
“While significant uncertainties still remain…
the balance of evidence suggests a discernible
human influence on global climate.”
Conclusion
The emerging picture of climate change, while
complex, is increasingly comprehensible.
Human activity (burning fossil fuel, changes in
land use, air pollution, etc.) must be seen in
relation to other factors—Earth’s orbital
changes, solar variability, and natural cycles—
particularly in the oceans. If the stakes weren’t
so high, this would be one of the most
fascinating scientific problems of our time,
since it combines so many biological, chemical,
and physical processes in a great, chaotic, and
complex system. But if we are correct, the
effect of human-produced GHGs is a recog-
nizable factor in the observed warming of the
global climate.
The ultimate benefit of the research described
in this essay will be a better understanding of
the possible climate of the near future. One fact
is abundantly clear: the next quarter of a
century will be a fascinating period in the study
of climate change.