Notes Unit 2

➢ Greenhouse Gases - sources and concentrations
○ CO2, Methane, CFC’s, and Nitrous Oxide - ones that humans produce and emit
○ Tropospheric Ozone, Water Vapor - occur naturally
➢ CO2
○ Annual emissions - 4% anthropogenic, 96% natural
○ Natural emissions - 60% plants, 40% oceans, 0.5% other (volcanoes, freshwater)
■ Plants is from respiration, decomposition, and wildfires
○ Human emissions - 80% fossil fuels, 12% land use, 8% cement making
○ Global atmospheric CO2 concentrations have increased rapidly since 1750
➢ Methane
○ Annual emissions - 49% anthropogenic, 51% natural
○ Natural emissions - 63% wetlands, 16% natural seeps, 12% freshwater, 4%
ruminants, 3% termites, 2% clathrates, 1% wildfires, 0.3% permafrost
○ Human emissions - 29% fossil fuels, 27% livestock, 23% landfill and waste, 11%
biomass, 11% rice fields
○ Global atmospheric methane concentrations increased greatly since 1750, slight
dip in 1990’s and 2000’s but increasing again
➢ Chlorofluorocarbons
○ Annual emissions - 100% anthropogenic
○ Impact of the Montreal Protocol - reduction of ozone depleting substances (ODS)
is ongoing
○ Global atmospheric concentration of ODS has decreased since then, but it is a
slow process
○ CFC’s are often replaced by HFC’s (Hydrofluorocarbons), which are also potent
greenhouse gases
➢ Nitrous Oxide
○ Annual emissions - 42% anthropogenic, 585 natural
○ Natural emissions - 58% natural soils, 35% oceans, 4% lightening, 3% freshwater
○ Human emissions - 74% agriculture, 14% fossil fuels, 9% biomass burning, 4%
waste
○ Global atmospheric concentration of Nitrous Oxide has increased since 1750
➢ “Indirect” Greenhouse Gases - gases that have no direct emission sources, but
concentrations of which are affected by the presence of other compounds or GHG’s
➢ Tropospheric Ozone
○ 10% of ozone is tropospheric
○ Tropospheric ozone production is driven by chemical reactions with other
compounds/molecules
○ Production is limited by the availability of nitrogen oxides
○ Very localized sources and limited diffusion (destroyed within hours to days),
results in localized concentrations and warming
○ Estimated between 20-40 Dobson Units
➢ Water Vapor
➢ Methane and Nitrous Oxide cycles
○ The addition of human emissions have caused imbalances in other chemical
cycles
➢ Global emission rates (tons per year)
○ CO2 - 31.5 billion
○ Methane - 117 million
○ N2O - 9.4 million
○ CFC - 38,000
➢ Concentrations in atmosphere
○ CO2 - 413 ppm
○ Methane - 1.892 ppm
○ Nitrous oxide - 0.333 ppm
○ CFC - 0.0003 ppm
➢ Lifetime in atmosphere
○ CO2 - 10s to 1000s of years
○ Methane - 12 years
○ Nitrous Oxide - 121 years
○ CFC - 13 years
➢ 12 year lifetime means that after 12 years the concentration of original amount equals 1/e
* original concentration
○ 24 years = 1/e^2 * original concentration
○ 36 years = 1/e^3 * original concentration
➢ Concentration of well mixed GHGs decrease exponentially
➢ Rate of removal of CO2 varies by sink, complicating atmospheric lifetimes of the gas
➢ For radioactive efficiency from worst to best: CFC, N2O, Methane, CO2
➢
➢ Don’t need to know formula
➢ CFCs are worst using this formula, then N2O, Methane, CO2
Class 10/7
➢
➢ A limitation of GWP is that it does not take into consideration past, present, or future
concentrations
➢ CO2 is “guiltiest” greenhouse gas
➢ China, US, and EU are top three in GHG emissions in 2019
➢ Per Capita emissions of CO2: UAE, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Canada, US top 5
Class 10/14
➢ Cryosphere is made up of all of the Earth’s surface settings that are dominated by water
in its solid form
➢ Between 1971-2019, the Arctic warmed three times faster than the rest of the planet
➢ Canaries and mice were widely used as early warning systems of dangerous gas
concentrations
○ In Britain, the practiced survived well into the 1980’s
➢ Cryosphere contains: snow cover, glaciers, permafrost, lake/river ice, sea ice, ice shelf,
continental glaciers
➢ Ground ice - layers of ice embedded inside permafrost layers
➢ Ground ice forms: percolation of surface and/or groundwater supplies the “freeze zone”
inside the sediments with water, ice crystals grow and push up overlying layers as nearly
pure ice forms at depth
➢ Glacial ice forms from heavily compacted recrystallized snow
➢ Make mountain glacier: add sufficient annual snowfall, expose to as little wind as
possible, keep it on a gentle slope, keep summer temperatures low
➢ Mountain glacier’s motion is driven by slope angle. Basal slippage, internal flow
➢ Glacial ice balance
○ Zone of accumulation - where mass is added through snowfall
○ Zone of ablation - where mass if lost (melting, evaporation, calving)
➢ Accumulation > ablation = glacial advance
➢ Accumulation < ablation = glacial retreat
➢ Continental glaciers move via “gravitational spreading”
➢ Long-term sustainability of the cryosphere in the polar regions and t high altitudes has
been made possible ______
➢ Annual snow cover: 45% of northern hemisphere and 2% of southern hemisphere
➢ Arctic snow cover extent is trending negatively
➢ Monthly NH snow cover trends are all trending negative since 1981

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➢ Greenhouse Gases - sources and concentrations

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