Global Climate Change and Human Life

In our time, the global population has become large enough to cause perceptible environmental changes all over the world. With it, a new science of global change has emerged, mostly as a practical matter to understand and manage the earth’s habitability and create a sustainable environment for some time to come – one which balances the benefits of technological and societal advances with their potential, less desirable side effects. These concerns began with the depletion of the ozone layer and its possible adverse consequences on human health, and have, in recent decades, shifted to climate change driven by ongoing global warming.   

Why are these global changes occurring? How will they affect our lives? If we find the effects undesirable, what should we do? This book will attempt to answer these questions. It will show how to accomplish the goal of managing our climate, what it will take, and when it needs to be done. Such a management process has to be dynamic, making it more complex and less didactic, requiring changes in strategy to achieve a longer-term goal as our knowledge advances. 

Global Climate Change and Human Life is a comprehensive and cohesive look at the emerging field of global change science. Using models that take the theoretical or conceptual understanding and translate them into mathematical forms, the book lays out a holistic view of the science that develops and teaches the main principles, concepts and conclusions. In the end, readers will be empowered to use science and the scientific method to decide how important and timely climate change is as a social issue and which solutions can succeed.   

Aslam Khalil is Professor of Physics at Portland State University. He holds a Ph.D in theoretical physics from the Center for Particle Theory at University of Texas, Austin and a Ph.D in Environmental Science and Engineering from OGI in Portland, Oregon. He has published more than 200 papers most of which deal with the human impact on the Earth’s climate particularly from non-CO2 greenhouse gases. This work contributed to international agreements for controlling global climate and ozone depletion such as the Kyoto and Montreal Protocols. He won the Outstanding Scientist Award in 2004 and was recognized as one of the most cited authors in the world in the environmental sciences by ISI.

Chapter 1 Introduction
What is Global Change Science?
Current Global Change Raising Fundamental Questions

Chapter 2 The Framework
The System
Scales of Action What Determines Climate?
The Benchmark Average Climate
Irreducible Uncertainties
The Plan

Chapter 3 Atmospheric Composition
Trace Gases and Their Roles in Climate and the Environment
Quantifying the Atmospheric Composition

Chapter 4 Mass Balance Theory and Small Models
The Components
Global
Hemispherical and Horizontal
Vertical

Chapter 5 Transport Processes
Vertical Transport and Convection
Horizontal Motion and the General Circulation
Turbulent Transport
Quantifying Transport Processes

Chapter 6 Mechanisms of Sources and Sinks
Reservoirs and Source-Sink Relationships
Atmospheric Chemistry
Global Environmental Applications
Cross-Media Transport: Oceans, Soils and Biota

Chapter 7 Balance of Climate Gases and Aerosols
Anthropogenic vs Natural Components
Greenhouse Gases

Chapter 8 The Science Of Climate
Solar Radiation
Albedo
Radiative Transfer
Heat Storage and Balance
Precipitation

Chapter 9 Instructive Climate Models
Base Temperature Model - Lessons, Flaws and Resolution
Radiative Forcing and Climate Sensitivity
Practical Relationships Between Greenhouse Gases and Surface Warming
Role of the Oceans
Role of Clouds
Horizontal Transport of Heat

Chapter 10 Climate Feedbacks
How They Work
Feedbacks Classified and Delineated
Physical Feedbacks
Role of the Living World

Chapter 11 Match of Climate Change Observed and Modeled
What is Global Warming?
Causes of Observed Warming
Differential Effects of Climate Change

Chapter 12 Population, Affluence and Global Change
Basic Relationships
Societal Factors in Climate Change
Population Growth and Resources
Vulnerability Theory

Chapter 13 Impacts of Climate Change on Humans
Impacts Classified
Health
Habitability

Chapter 14 Climate Management
Tragedy of the Commons
Compounding Forces of Resistance
Mechanisms for Managing the Climate
Geo-engineering Trading Gases: The Global Warming Potential

Chapter 15 Possible Futures
Projections
The Metaphysics of Climate Change