Climate Change: Day 1

GEO 4930-06: Special Topics in Geography

Tuesdays and Thursdays: 11 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.

Bellamy Room 114

How do we know climate is changing. How do we know it is because of us?

• Seas are rising and becoming more acidic

• Temperatures are increasing and glaciers are melting

• Weather events are becoming more extreme (heat waves, hurricanes?, tornadoes?)

• My passion is storms. If it spins, it wins. Frisbee.

• Hurricanes and tornadoes: Are they becoming more severe as the climate warms. How do we know?

• What will tomorrow be like? Decision making under uncertainty.

• The beauty of it all. Adrift (4.5 min)

Professor James B. Elsner, Bellamy Room 310

Office Hours: TR 9 – 11 a.m., 2 - 3 p.m. (& by appointment)

Email: jelsner@fsu.edu

Twitter: @hurricanejim, @FSU_Geography

My goal is to help you understand the science behind global warming.

I will focus on severe weather: hurricanes and tornadoes. How are they changing? Changes in extreme weather and climate events, such as heat waves and droughts, are the primary way that most people experience climate change.

I will teach you the basics of weather and climate and I will challenge you to think critically about how and why tornadoes and hurricanes are changing as the climate continues to warm.

I want you to know how scientists come to know climate is changing. I want you to know how to draw and interpret a trend line. Scholarship in practice.

I want you to know what evidence exists that climate is changing. I want you to know how to explain why these changes are linked to human factors.

I want you to be able to list and explain the ingredients for tornadoes & hurricanes. I want you to explain if and why hurricanes/tornadoes might be more numerous and stronger as the globe continues to warm.

Class participation and readings: 20%

Term project: 20%

Exams (Three + An Optional Final): 60%

My passion for severe weather began as a kid growing up in Milwaukee hoping for a “snow day.”

Freedom from school. Push cars for cash. Interested in the nightly weather broadcast.

Forecasting is hard and humbling (sometimes humiliating): the bus would not make it to school.

Every spring I get the itch to chase tornadoes.

Doing science. Teaching students how to do science. Teaching students how to think, write, and code as a scientist.

Is coding the new literacy?

Thursday September 18th

Thursday October 16th

Thursday November 20th

No Makeup Exams. Please stop by my office (Bellamy 310) if you are unavailable for these dates.

Calendar

Meteorology vs geography: Expecting a meteorologist with three years of calculus to be good at analyzing climate data is like expecting a set theorist to be good at deriving the QG omega equation.

A challenge in teaching students about climate is to get them over the elitism of the calculus. Statistics is as important, even more so.

Did global warming cause that terrible tornado? Did it make it more likely?

There is a systematic increase in tornado width and length during the past 20 years. Tornado width and length are strongly correlated with tornado intensity.

Poll Everywhere

• Thursday, September 26 Balloon Launch 6:30p
• Tuesday, October 8 Review for Exam 1
• Thursday, October 10 Exam 1
• Tuesday, October 15 No Class
• Thursday, November 6 No Class
• Thursday, November 28 Thanksgiving
• Tuesday, December 3 Review for Exam 2
• Thursday, December 5 Exam 2

• Temperature Trends
• Precipitation Changes
• Changes in Hurricane Activity
• Changes in Tornado Activity
• Changes in Other Extreme Weather

Observed Changes

Figure 2.2: Global Temperature and Carbon Dioxide > Details/Downloads > Images > Metadata

loc = "ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/mlost/operational/products/aravg.ann.land.00N.90N.v3.5.4.201404.asc"
df = read.table(loc)
df[1:3, 1:3]

    V1      V2      V3
1 1880 -0.8207 0.03607
2 1881 -0.7693 0.03622
3 1882 -0.7450 0.03633

names(df) = c("Year", "Temperature")
library(ggplot2)
ggplot(df, aes(Year, Temperature)) +
  geom_line()