Wikibooks: Climate Change/Science

• Format: Book
• Language: English
• Subjects: Sea ice
• Online Access: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Climate_Change/Science

Climate change has become a hot button issue over the past few years and this has only become more extreme as United States policy on climate change has diverged from much of the rest of the world and the scientific community. However climate change is first and foremost a scientific topic. In this wikibook the underlying science of climate change is explored in some detail. The study of climate sometimes called climatology or climate science is actually a relatively young field but has roots in all the major branches of science. It is most easily associated with atmospheric science (and its older name [[Meteorology]]) and oceanography. There are also strong connections with the cryosphere (glaciology) the biosphere (biology ecology) and the lithosphere (especially through the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels). Using basic physical principles the science of climate change and these connections to other natural sciences will emerge. We will see how computer models current observation and studies of ancient climates converge on a singular picture of the near future that includes continued global warming enhancement of the hydrological cycle decreasing sea ice shrinking glaciers and ice sheets more acidic ocean water rising sea level and more frequent extreme climate events. Many of the fundamental concepts of climate science are straight out of elementary physics. The equations of motion are the same fundamental equations that govern all classical fluid dynamics much of energy transfer is based on well known principles of radiative transfer and nuclear physics and spectrometry and a lot of observations are based on geological chemical and biological processes and methods. This is all to say that climate science is a multi disciplinary field with diverse (even disparate at times) interests and applications. It is unified only by the end goal to understand the physical processes governing our natural world. These same physical principles are at work in understanding a changing climate. The main difference ...