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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
Measuring Climate Change to Inform Energy Transitions A useful assessment tool to inform energy transition decisions in view of climate change Climate change is without question the greatest global challenge of the twenty-first century. Among its many aspects is the need for energy transitions worldwide, as sustainable energy infrastructure must be rapidly created if the world is to forestall climate catastrophe. Methods for measuring CO2 concentration and other factors producing climate change will be critical to managing this transition and assessing its early impacts. Measuring Climate Change to Inform Energy Transitions proposes a method for measuring sinusoidal gradients of increasing temperatures and CO2 concentration in order to determine the ongoing impact of global warming and make recommendations. This method will be critical in informing key decisions as the energy transition proceeds. It is a must-read for academic, professional, and policy stakeholders looking to meet these challenges head-on. Readers will also find: * Concrete models and mechanisms for effecting energy transition * Detailed discussion of topics including vegetative sinks for carbon capture, power reforms from coal, carbon footprint of internal combustion engines, skills required for green jobs and many more * Examples and case studies to supplement quantitative analyses This book is ideal for professionals, undergraduate and graduate students, and researchers in the energy, environmental, government, and engineering fields.
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Measuring Climate Change to Inform Energy Transitions
Carbon Footprint Calculations
Sunny E. Iyuke
University of the Witwatersrand
Johannesburg, South Africa
Copyright © 2024 by John Wiley & Sons Inc. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.Published simultaneously in Canada.
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Preface
In this century of COP27, almost all delegates, including the United Nations, have requested rich countries to stop using coal by 2030 and poor countries by 2040. Otherwise, before now, climate professionals have shown that heat waves, coastal floods and tropical cyclones will continue to produce devastation that is more violent if the world does not rapidly effect policies, build infrastructure and develop skills and workforce to make clean electricity, transportation and other energy applications. It is convenient to remind humans that in 2015, more than 200 governments agreed to stop global warming by 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) by the end of the century. However, seven years later, as they meet again for a climate summit in COP27 in Egypt, policies that will enable heating the planet by less than this value are being pursued.
It therefore becomes obvious that for world leaders to honour their promises, they must sharply cut the amount of heating on the planet by immediately transiting the use of coal, petroleum oil and gas or fossil energy sources to cleaner energies such as hydrogen, fuel cells, solar, wind, biomass and renewables into the air each year. Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions such as carbon dioxide (CO2) methane (CH4) would have to fall by 45% by the end of the decade and reach net zero by 2050. The main driver for optimistic shift would be to generate clean electricity, clean fuels for transportation and other stationary applications instead of using fossil fuels, and electrifying activities that involve burning coal, petroleum oil, gas, etc.
Most of the world now generates power for grid, households and transportation from coal, the dirtiest source of energy, and fossil oil and gas, which are cleaner but still polluting. Combusting these fuels releases GHGs into the Earth, heating the planet and making extreme weather worse as is currently observed around the world, whether developed or underdeveloped. About a year after the previous COP26, less than 40% of the world's electricity still comes from low‐carbon sources like solar, wind, nuclear and hydropower, to mention but a few.
This book therefore presents transition mechanisms and model (Figure 1) that the world can adopt to move from fossil fuels as energy sources to renewables and other clean energy technologies, as mentioned above. The manuscript can thus be used by energy policymakers, trainers and educationists in both elementary and tertiary education, including research and development experts.
The main objective of compiling the author's previous works and reports with the students and colleagues into this book is therefore to provide sustainable development plans for both policymakers and end users, while the book is aimed at developing an innovative planning tool to assess the effect of energy consumption and production on the overall carbon emissions. It is also to measure, calculate and benchmark against set standards and government policies. Technologies to compact or control GHG emissions are also proposed and applied in case studies distributed across the chapters. This tool is used for both modelling of imminent global warming and assessment of current situations, supported with examples and case studies, which may involve the use of triangulation tool to convert gradients of CO2 emissions to spatial coordinates and bearings.
Policymakers and educators with technical backgrounds will find the book useful. Individuals and environmentalists, engineers, scientists, students, etc., will buy the book. In addition, because of the inclusion of a chapter on policy with reference to the preceding chapters on calculations, measurement and decision‐making, it will be a reference textbook accessed through libraries serving academic researchers and teachers for classroom teaching and learning resource materials.
Figure 1 Effect of carbon footprint on global warming: (a) modified image (Gambrill 2021), (b) drying lake bed at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa as of 2023. (c) The Ocean Foundation highlighted that seagrass habitants are up to 35× more effective than Amazonian rainforests in their carbon uptake and storage abilities (Owens et al. 2019).
1 Topics
The book comprises the following seven chapters: (1) ‘Introduction, Carbon Footprint and Climate Change’ that establishes the background and implementation of the tool to determine carbon footprint and its impacts on climate change. (2) ‘Vegetative Sinks for Carbon Capture’ that introduces and applies carbon sequestration as the process of capturing molecules of carbon dioxide (CO2), which is one of the leading GHGs in the atmosphere. Trees, forests and even microalgae are used as vegetative sinks that sequester carbon through photosynthesis, including food gardens. (3) ‘Carbon Transition for the Petrochemical Sector’ involves transformative actions to decarbonise the chemical, petrochemical, oil and gas sectors in finding alternative non‐fossil carbon feedstocks and provides overall understanding of the environmental implications, scientific, engineering resources and equipment. (4) ‘Energy Transition and Power Reforms from Coal’. Since power supply is a major component to the social and economic development of any nation and is a component of the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations, energy demands increase with increasing population and in turn more coal, oil and gas are burned for power generation. This exacerbates GHG emissions and environmental concerns, whereas abundance of renewable energy in Africa in general calls for new energy policies that will promote renewable energy‐sourced power generation and ensure a cleaner environment for South Africa and the continent as a whole. (5) ‘Carbon Footprint of Internal Combustion Engines and Mitigations’ involves the transportation sector as a major contributor to CO2 release into the atmosphere, which in turn acts as the key culprit in increasing climate change. In order to meet the long‐term climate change mitigation targets, as set by the Paris Agreement and for individual countries, policies towards decarbonising road, air and ocean transportation should be built around more efficient transport, society and larger shares of renewable fuels and faster introduction of electric vehicles and engines. (6) ‘Application of Carbon Footprint to Climate Change Solutions’ presents that investments in development and use of renewable energy will facilitate the transiting from fossil fuels to clean and renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, wave, tidal and geothermal power and hydrogen and help with climate change solutions since global warming and climate change are inseparably the world's most topical issues in the current environment‐economy dialogue. Thus, since CO2 emission is the main GHG responsible for global warming and climate change, many scholars and policymakers are beginning to tune the relationship between climate change, energy production, and sustainable economic growth. (7) ‘Climate Change Policy and Skills Education’ involves skills development policies and green job creation plans. It then presents an elegant, thought‐provoking inquiry on how the engineering discipline can impact and battle climate change to build a more sustainable world and ensure that engineering should be the key to delivering a sustainable future.
2 Acknowledgements
This excellent compilation entitled Measuring Climate Change to Inform Energy Transitions: Carbon Footprint Calculations would not have been possible without the support from the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Johannesburg, in South Africa, which has given permission to use the University's policy on climate change and its associated works. The current Head of School of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Professor Josias van der Merwe, permitted the use of the School's Quinquennial Review Report (QQR) for the period from 2017 to 2022 on the curriculum for skills training and education of experts on climate change, carbon transition and global warming.
The Wits students' design reports and postgraduate research, which were supervised by the author and other colleagues, became handy as the author received permission to include extracts of these reports in this textbook. The examples and case studies from these students provide the credibility and resourcefulness the reader will find in the work, which are gratefully appreciated. It is therefore with heartfelt gratitude that the author gives recognition to the following former students who have magnanimously allowed their hard work to be included in this manuscript.
Dr. Osayi Ilawe Julius, whose research work is entitled Production and characterisation of biocrude from used tyres and natural rubber. Miss Thandeka Lukhele and Mr. Thembalethu Sibuye who researched into evaluation of membrane electrode assembly performance based on hydrogenated and sulfonated polystyrene‐butadiene rubber in a single‐cell PEM fuel cell and electrolyser and process design and integration of proton exchange membrane electrolyser for 500 kW proton exchange membrane fuel cell to power the Richard Ward building at Wits University, respectively. The excellent design reports presented as case studies were co‐authored by Mr. Darren Bouttell, Ishaam Ismail and Ketalya Reddy on their design work entitled Balance of Plant Design for Simultaneous DME and Methanol Production and Power Generation. Mr. Michael Landgrebe's design report on a 4000 Barrel Per Day Modular Refinery and Ms. Nyiko Ngxola's design report on Student Food Garden at the Wits University, which was supervised by the author's colleague, Dr. R.T. Paton as a final year design project at the School of Mechanical, Industrial and Aeronautical (MIA) Engineering at Wits University.
My gratitude also goes to the South African government for the interns provided for this work through the Presidential Youth Employment Intervention (PYEI) Graduate Programme. Finally, to my family and the entire Iyuke family: without their love and enormous help and support, the project would never have been possible.
3 Synopsis
The book proposes temperature/CO2 and temperature/time gradients as measures of global warming and climate change, respectively. These gradients recommend that CO2 should be reduced to the pre‐industrial revolution of the 1800s gradient of 0.0551 ≤ 0.5000Δ°C/ΔCO2 and −35.64 ≤ 0.500Δ°C/ΔYr from 2010 to 2035, respectively. A Triangulation tool that converts gradient bearings to spatial coordinates is hereby employed to interpret and avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Its application provides the world with the urgent need to reduceGHGs such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), dichlorodifluoromethane (CCl2F2) especially CO2 emissions. This is a responsibility between regions, countries and individuals, which possess endless points of contention at the international arena, such as the Conference of the Parties (COP). Thus, the role of governments in these efforts to control or stop climate change is to encourage governments and businesses to adopt the following strategies for predictable energy transition goals presented in the table below. As shown, CO2 concentration increases at a gradient of 76.76 from 1990–2010, followed by a negative gradient of −35.64 from 2010–2035, while the 3rd spline has a gentle slope of 5.4, which is still higher than the minimum value of 0.500Δ°C/ΔYr. Upon the analysis of the measured atmospheric temperature against CO2 concentration, again a negative gradient of −0.0004CCO2 is obtained, which supports the earlier negative value −0.0004 ≤ 0.500Δ°C/ΔCO2 during the second spline 2010–2035. In both cases, therefore, the trigonometric triangulation projection supports the fact that the ‘net annual change in CO2 equivalent model adopted by the UK woodlands’ is presenting positive results to global warming and, in turn, should assist in taking decisions for the efforts to transit carbon economy as an example. It is therefore expedient to quote the UK Forests and Climate Change future predictions that carbon uptake may assume that commercial conifer plantations should be replanted when felled. That, also planting of new woodland to support the current Rural Development Plan should be encouraged because the CO2 release is still on the increase, as shown by the gradient of 5.4 ≥ 0.500Δ°C/ΔYr from 2035 to 2050.
Emission (ppmv CO
2
)
Period (year)
Gradient of global warming
Energy transition ≥277.04 ppmv ≥0.500Δ°C/ΔCO
2
≥0.500Δ°C/ΔYr
Predictive modelling
277.04–277.10
1647–1756
0.5000Δ°C/ΔCO
2
Maintain CO
2
284–287
1856–1870
0.0380Δ°C/ΔCO
2
Reduce CO
2
298–314
1915–1940
0.0201Δ°C/ΔCO
2
Reduce CO
2
335–374
1970–2005
0.0142Δ°C/ΔCO
2
Reduce CO
2
Application of modelling on UK Forests and Climate Change data
4050–5670
1990–2010
76.76 ≥ 0.500Δ°C/ΔYr
Reduce CO
2
5751–5022
2010–2035
−35.64 ≤ 0.500Δ°C/ΔYr
Maintain CO
2
5049–5103
2035–2050
5.4 ≥ 0.500Δ°C/ΔYr
Reduce CO
2
However, in the international community, the importance of education and training to address climate change is currently receiving attention because education is crucial to promoting climate action. It certainly helps people to understand and address the impacts of the climate crisis, thus empowering them with the right knowledge, skills, values and attitudes needed to act as agents of change as buttressed by a case study from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. It is therefore a common belief that the provision of the right skills, however, paves the way for a productive structural transformation towards a greener economy and decent job creation. This also means that effective anticipation and development of skills are fundamentals for a just and inclusive transition. Such skill development to create green jobs also serves as a “buffer” against the effects of transitory disruptions and emerging challenges that will surface as economies become green. A well‐coordinated policy approach will ease the transition to a greener future, which again should be inclusive.
Keywords
climate change; energy transitions; students' food garden; triangulation tool; modular refinery; power reforms from coal; electric vehicle; CO2 as feedstocks; skills training and education
School of Chemical & Metallurgical EngineeringUniversity of the WitwatersrandJohannesburg, South Africa
Jan 27, 2024Sunny E. Iyuke
References
Gambrill, D. (2021). Aviva Canada wants to talk to you about reducing your carbon footprint. Canadian Underwritter, 8 March 2021.
https://www.canadianunderwriter.ca/insurance/aviva-canada-wants-to-talk-to-you-about-reducing-your-carbon-footprint-1004204790
(accessed 8 June 2023).
Owens, A., Voros, B., Fore, P., and Ruballo, G. (2019). The Ocean Foundation. Global, 16 April 2019. Source:
https://oceanfdn.org/how-to-reduce-your-carbon-footprint-when-you-travel/
(accessed 8 June 2023).
1Introduction, Carbon Footprint and Climate Change
1.1 Introduction
A carbon footprint can be defined as the measure of the impact of human activities have on the environment due to direct or indirect release of greenhouse gases. It estimates the greenhouse gases in pounds or tons of carbon dioxide (CO2). Within the context of total Ecological Footprint, the tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions are expressed as the amount of productive land area required to sequester those carbon dioxide emissions. This refers to biocapacity that is necessary to neutralise the emissions from burning fossil fuels. Thus, measuring the carbon footprint in land area shows how much biocapacity is needed to take care of untreated carbon waste and avoid a carbon build‐up in the atmosphere. This method of measurement allows addressing climate change challenge in a holistic manner that does not simply shift the burden from one natural system to another because the planet does not provide enough biocapacity to neutralise all the carbon dioxide from fossil fuel and other‐natural CO2 sequestration medium.
Levels of CO2 in the atmosphere are moderately normal, because it helps to keep the planet warm and plays an integral role in many key biological processes, which includes photosynthesis and other biogenic transformations by nature. These earthly transformations produce the so‐called Global Carbon Cycle. However, human activities have altered this natural cycle by adding more concentration of CO2 to the atmosphere, which has overburdened natural ability to remove it. The major culprit in the increased CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere is the burning of fossil fuels (oil, coal and natural gas), as well as changes in land use from deforestation.
The ocean is not left out in sustaining the stability of the carbon cycle by absorbing excess CO2 from the atmosphere. As seawater absorbs the excess CO2, chemical reactions known as ocean acidification occur, which increases the acidity of the water. The resultant acids make life very difficult for corals to build and maintain skeletons, shellfish, lobsters, scallops and clams to build shells and function normally or even die. The oceans also experience warmer temperatures and sea levels increase due to the warming of the atmosphere.
Ordinarily, carbon footprint may be determined from the average number of gallons an engine consumes per hour, then multiply this by the total number of hours the engine has run during the period in question.
For example:
Over a year, if a car consumes 10 gallons of fuel per hour and the engine runs for 204 hours. The gallons consumed are,
In case of marine diesel, the CO2 released is:
where marine fuel consumption can be given as:
One gallon of fuel
Pounds (lb) of CO
2
per gallon
Marine diesel
21.24
Marine unleaded 93
19.88
Marine unleaded 91
19.51
Marine unleaded 89
19.52
Jet A
21.10
Biodiesel
5.02
Climate change, on the other hand, is the long‐term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. The shifts may be due to natural variations in the solar cycle. However, since the Industrial Revolution in 1800s, the main causes of climate change have been due to human activities, mainly due to burning fossil fuels like coal, petroleum oil and gas. It has been proven that the greenhouse emissions from burning of fossil fuels wrapped around the earth like blankets, trapping the sun's heat and raise temperatures of the earth. Although, clearing land and forests, landfills for garbage are sources of CO2 and methane (CH4) emissions, respectively, greenhouse gas emissions that are causing climate change come from using gasoline and diesel for transportation, heating buildings, industry, transport, agriculture and land.
It is also expedient to mention that in the last Conference of the Parties (COP) 26 in Glasgow the last decade (2011–2020) has experienced the warmest weather on record. Also, the greenhouse gas concentrations are at their highest levels in about 2 million years, and the emissions continue to rise. Such that the earth is now 1.1 °C warmer than the temperature in the late 1800s.
1.2 Global Warming Due to Carbon‐Cycle Feedbacks in a Coupled Climate Model
In the 1992 Supplementary Report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Emissions published Six alternative IPCC scenarios (IS92a to f). The scenarios contained assumptions affecting how future greenhouse gas emissions would affect the climate policies that are already in place. As a result, Cox et al. (2000), simulated atmospheric CO2, which diverged very rapidly from the standard IS92a concentration scenario in the future as presented in Figure 1.1. They observed that vegetation carbon in South America was declining due to the drying and increase in temperature of Amazonia that started loss of forest, which was a result of climate change. It was also proposed that a critical point will be reached by 2050, when the land biosphere may switch from being a weak sink to a strong source for CO2 (Figure 1.1). Such that reduction in terrestrial carbon by 2050 onward may be associated with a widespread climate‐driven loss of soil carbon. On the other hand, rise in concentration of atmospheric CO2 will tend to promote increasing rate of photosynthesis and terrestrial carbon storage. Since the rate of plant maintenance and soil respiration will increase with temperature, terrestrial carbon storage will reduce. This scenario will be most observed in the warmer regions where an increase in temperature does not necessarily support photosynthesis because, at this point, CO2 concentration saturates photosynthesis whilst soil respiration increases with temperature. This means that a transition will come in year 2050 whereby carbon stored on land would decrease by about 170 Gt C from 2000 to 2100, which in turn accelerates the rate of atmospheric CO2. This is a scary scenario if urgent governments of nations do not take urgent actions to give adequate control on the evolving threat of climate change as enormously and better presented elsewhere (Cox et al. 2000) (Figure 1.2).
Figure 1.1 CO2 simulation, where the thick line shows simulated change in atmospheric carbon. The thinner lines are the integrated impact of the emissions of land and ocean fluxes. The terrestrial biosphere takes up CO2 at decreasing rate from 2010 and become a net source by 2050. These reversing rates balance themselves by 2010 on land and oceanic sinks, which would result into increasing atmospheric carbon content at a fraction of 1. Source: Cox et al./Springer Nature.
Figure 1.2 Atmospheric CO2 concentrations measured in units of parts per million by volume Rust and Thijsse/National Institute of Standards and Technology/https://math.nist.gov/∼BRust/pubs/CSC07/ReprintCSC-07.pdf/Public Domain.
1.3 A Mathematical Model of Man‐Made CO2 Emissions
This section discusses the analysis by Rust (2011) who proposed that atmospheric CO2 concentrations c(ti) can be related to man‐made CO2 emissions F(ti) by a linear regression model whose solution vector gives the unknown retention fractions γ(ti) of the F(ti) in the atmosphere. In this estimation of γ(t), enough accuracy was obtained to establish the connection between emissions from fossil fuel and land uses and increase in global average annual temperature anomalies.
It was explained that uncertainties in global climate models are often doubted on the basis that global warming is too complicated to estimate climate models. Rust and Thijsse (2007) and Thijsse and Rust (2008) were able to use the measurements of global average temperatures and atmospheric CO2 concentrations to confirm that global warming is principally caused by increasing concentrations of the greenhouse of CO2. By combining atmospheric measurements from 1958–2004 at the South Pole with measurements from 1647–1978 at Antarctic ice cores gave the plot in Figure 1.3 as the record of atmospheric CO2 concentrations obtained for these regions and periods of time.
Thus, Rust and Thijsse (2007) assumed that changes in the temperature anomaly are linearly proportional to changes in the atmospheric concentration of CO2 as:
where T is temperature, C is concentration of CO2, t is period of time and η is a constant to be determined by curve fitting. The time scale should be chosen so that t = 0 at epoch 1856.0 and integrating the above equation gives:
where Rust and Thijsse (2007) assumed that c0 = 277.04 is the preindustrial concentration illustrated in Figure 1.3 and T0 is the corresponding temperature anomaly (not the temperature anomaly at t = 0) which is also estimated by curve fitting.
Figure 1.3 Annual global average temperature anomalies. The anomaly for any given year was obtained by subtracting a reference temperature from the average temperature for that year. The reference temperature used was the average temperature for the years 1961–1990. The solid curve is the fit of Eq. (1.2) to the data, and the dashed curve is a plot of T0 + η[C(t) − 277.04] where T0 and η are the parameter estimates obtained from that fit. Source: Rust and Thijsse/National Institute of Standards and Technology/https://math.nist.gov/∼BRust/pubs/CSC07/ReprintCSC-07.pdf/Public Domain.
Figure 1.4 Annual man‐made carbon emissions to the atmosphere. The flux units are megatons of carbon per year (Rust 2011).
Figure 1.4 was derived from the fitting of Eq. (1.2) with measured data that gave a curve very similar to the dashed line at 278 ppmv of CO2 leading to Eq. (1.3).
The solid curve in Figure 1.4 is the nonlinear least squares fit of the model (3) to the data. The authors (Rust and Thijsse 2007) confirmed that: (1) there is a linear relationship between global warming and increasing CO2 in the atmosphere, (2) warming since 1856 has been ≈0.9 °C and (3) that the warming is accelerating at a faster rate. Again, from their modelling, the annual total man‐made carbon emissions to the atmosphere for 1850–2000 were also presented and shown in the upper curve of Figure 1.4.
The application of the model (Eq. (1.3)) will be used as the carbon footprint barometer of the measurement of climate change for energy transition in all the chapters of the book.
1.4 Estimation of Global Warming for Energy Transition
With reference to Eq. (1.3), the circular functions sin x can be defined by the power series expansions (James 1999) as:
Thus, the linear approximation of sin x at a = 0 of Figure 1.5 and Table 1.1 gives:
Therefore, Eq. (1.3) becomes:
Thus, a plot of T(t) against t of Eq. (1.6) will give the constants A, τ and ∅. Once these constants are obtained, they can be fed into Eq. (1.3) to predict the carbon footprint as function of global warming and energy transition in this and subsequent chapters.
Figure 1.5 Linearised sine function at a = 0.
Table 1.1 Trigonometric table.
θ
0°
30°
45°
60°
90°
180°
270°
360°
sin
θ
0
1
0
−1
0
cos
θ
1
0
−1
0
1
tan
θ
0
1
Not defined
0
Not defined
0
cosec
θ
Not defined
2
1
Not defined
−1
Not defined
sec
θ
1
2
Not defined
−1
Not defined
1
cot
θ
Not defined
1
0
Not defined
0
Not defined
Figure 1.6 Plots of temperature versus time and CO2 concentration against time to determine global warming from increasing CO2 and environmental temperature at the Antarctic.
However, since Thijsse and Rust (2008) referred to T0, η, A, φ and τ, as free parameters and nonlinear constants, which they determined from least‐square fit to the temperature data, Eq. (1.6) is rewritten as Eq. (1.7):
which implies that:
where, and L(t) = A∅ are the temperature variation and sums of greenhouse emissions due to changes in land and sea uses, respectively. Thus, the plots of Eqs. (1.6) and (1.3) in Figure 1.6, whilst substituting Eq. (1.9) gave approximately same values as the free parameters of Thijsse and Rust (2008), which were tested statistically:
The sinusoidal gradients of the increasing temperatures and CO2 concentration present measure of global warming and recommendation for control of CO2 emission into the atmosphere as presented in Figure 1.7 in order to effect energy transition policies either to maintain or reduce Carbon Footprint. The figure supports the increasing risk of global warming with recommendations as tabulated in Table 1.2, which were interpreted from the data in Thijsse and Rust (2008) at different splines 1–4. Such analytical procedure can be integrated into CO2 sensor and magnetic compass to detect CO2 in the environment (Arena 2013).
1.4.1 Application of Temperature/CO2 Gradient as a Measure of Global Warming
Although the International Panel of Climate Change reported that for five decades (1951–2012) the earth has experienced warming at a rather high rate from 0.08 to 0.14 °C per decade, it has become worse than that in the last decade (2012–2022). As a matter of fact, UNICEF echoed during the COP27 climate conference in Sharm et Sheik, Egypt that this year has brought devastating flooding to 27.7 million children in 27 countries worldwide. This trend has been observed over both land and over the ocean. In the records by IPCC (IPCC 2013), this increasing temperature is attributed to the total increase primarily caused by the increase in the atmospheric concentration of CO2 during the last 200 years. As discussed in the preceding section, the warming rate changes with time, raising questions regarding the causes underlying the observed trends. Of course, greenhouse gases and other anthropogenic forcing are prevalent that more precise quantification of the temperature changes. Detection and quantification of this attribution are still regarded as key priorities in climate change research. However, IPCC defines detection as the process of demonstrating that climate has changed in some statistical sense, which means that the likelihood of occurrence by chance due to internal variability alone is small (Stips et al. 2016).
Figure 1.7 Temperature/CO2 gradient as measure of global warming.
Table 1.2 Increasing global warming with temperature and CO2 concentration.
Emission (ppmv CO
2
)
Period (year)
Correlation coefficient (
R
2
)
Gradient of global warming
Energy transition ≥277.04 ppmv ≥0.500Δ°C/ΔCO
2
≥0.500Δ°C/ΔYr
277.04–277.10
1647–1756
0.1071
0.5000Δ°C/ΔCO
2
Maintain CO
2
284–287
1856–1870
0.9890
0.0380Δ°C/ΔCO
2
Reduce CO
2
298–314
1915–1940
0.8938
0.0201Δ°C/ΔCO
2
Reduce CO
2
335–374
1970–2005
0.0142
0.0142Δ°C/ΔCO
2
Reduce CO
2
Thus, the application of gradient of change in temperature versus change in CO2 concentration as a measure of global warming to the 2004 Global Temperature Anomalies (NASA 2004), Figure 1.8 was obtained, which recommends that CO2 should be reduced since the gradient, 0.0551 ≤ 0.5000Δ°C/ΔCO2 (Table 1.2).
Figure 1.8 2004 global temperature anomalies.
Figure 1.9 Triangulation of concentration of CO2 gradient compass, angles A and B are CO2 sensors or observer with geographic information system (GIS) data capturing, storing, checking and displaying capacity and related to positions on Earth's surface (Arena, 2013).
1.4.2 Triangulation Tool to Convert Gradient Bearings to Spatial Coordinates
In remote and inaccessible locations such as the wilderness, cliffs or geological platforms where measurements of features may be required to calculate the distance to a faraway objects and greenhouse CO2 concentrations. In the example and model presented in Figure 1.9, a compass and basic trigonometry triangulation calculation has been used, where CO2 concentration can easily be estimated from distance faraway distance. Thus, if any three of the sides or angles of a triangle are known, the remaining angles and sides are calculated. Wilderness Arena Newsletter 2013 has used the following illustrations, adapted as:
(1)
Adopt two distances
b
and
c
to the remote arena,
(2)
Sight the faraway pollutants in a compass from both points,
(3)
Record the angle for both paths to be used in the distance calculations.
