Great Stories

Ozone (O3) is found throughout the atmosphere, with the majority (about 90%) in the stratosphere and the remainder in the troposphere. In both regions it is continually formed and destroyed through photochemical processes (section 1.2.1.4), involving carbon monoxide (CO), methane, non-methane hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides (NOx). Ozone is radiatively important […]

Throughout this chapter, some of the evidence for episodes of climate change during the course of Earth History has been reviewed, with particular emphasis on the last 2 million years. For each era, the time scale of climate change was explicitly defined and the relevant climatic forcing mechanisms evaluated. The […]

With the exception of stratospheric ozone, all greenhouse gases discussed throughout section 6.4 have increased in concentration in the atmosphere over the last 200 years since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Pre-industrial and current concentrations of the key greenhouse gases, and their recent rates of increase (IPCC, 1995), are […]

There is no overall consensus as to whether anthropogenic climate change will increase or decrease global agricultural potential. Negative impacts could be experienced at the regional level as a result of changes in weather, moisture availability (Parry, 1990), pests associated with climate change (EPA, 1989) and changes in ground level […]

Statistical-dynamical models (SDMs) are generally 2-D in form, with usually one horizontal and one vertical dimension, though variants with two horizontal dimensions have been developed. Standard SDMs combine the horizontal energy transfer modelled by EBMs with the radiative-convective approach of RCMs. However, the equator-to-pole energy transfer is simulated in a […]