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The global energy balance is sensitive to cloud albedo, and most particularly towards marine stratus (low-level) clouds which cover about 25% of the Earth. Cloud albedo is itself sensitive to changes in the cloud droplet number concentration. This droplet number depends, in a complex manner, on the concentration of cloud […]

The atmosphere is a mixture of different gases and aerosols (suspended liquid and solid particles) collectively known as air which envelopes the Earth, forming an integrated environmental (climate) system with all the Earth’s components. The atmosphere provides various functions, not least the ability to sustain life. Of prime interest for […]

The UK is now committed, through the Kyoto Protocol, to a 12% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2008 to 2012 from 1990 levels. The UK Programme of CO2 emission reduction furthermore aims to reduce CO2 emissions by 20% by 2010. Recent energy projections (Dti, 1995) show that the UK […]

Rainfall is measured most simply by noting periodically how much has been collected in an exposed vessel since the time of the last observation. Care must be taken to avoid underestimating rainfall due to evaporation of the collected water and the effects of wind (Folland, 1988; Mueller & Kidder, 1972). […]

The Earth’s orbit around the Sun is not perfectly circular but follows an elliptical path (see Figure 2.1). A second orbital variation involves the strength of the ellipse, or eccentricity. This parameter, e, is determined by Equation 4, which compares the two focal lengths, x and y in Figure 2.1. […]

Many of the techniques used for palaeoclimatic reconstruction discussed in the preceding sections have only a limited time scale open to their period of study. Most ice cores are restricted to the last million years, whilst tree ring analysis can only provide proxy climate information for at best the last […]

Just as energy, moisture and momentum are transferred throughout the climate system (section 1.2.5), greenhouse gases are cycled through the various components that make up the global biogeochemical system. As for all systems and subsystems in equilibrium, the fluxes of the different greenhouse gases must balance. For the atmospheric component, […]

Most climate models agree that a reduction in the equator to pole temperature gradient, at least on land, will be experienced in a greenhouse world. Consequently, climatic zones could shift several hundred kilometres towards the poles during the next century (Emmanuel et al., 1985), although the rate of transition is […]

The major sink for atmospheric methane is the chemical reaction with hydroxyl radicals (OH) in the troposphere (section 1.2.1). Current removal estimates (Prather et al., 1995) are 445Mt/a. This natural process is, however, affected by the reaction of OH with other anthropogenic emissions, principally carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrocarbons from […]

The Earth’s atmosphere has an important influence on the energy budget of the global climate system. This is determined by the thermodynamic processes involved in solar and terrestrial energy transfers. The Earth’s principal source of energy is the Sun, which produces electromagnetic radiation from nuclear fusion reactions involving hydrogen in […]