Modeling and identification of climatic scenarios

Modeling and identification of climatic scenarios

The global climate changes are very complicated; therefore the modern science is unable to give a unambiguous answer about our near future. There are many developments scenarios.

Scenario 1: Global warming will occur gradually

The Earth is an enormous and complicated system consisting of a large number of interconnected structural components. There is moving atmosphere the air mass of which moves and distributes thermal energy over the planet latitudes. The Earth has a huge accumulator of heat and gases – the World Ocean. The ocean accumulates heat 1000 times more than the atmosphere does. Changes in such a complicated system can not happen fast. Centuries and millenniums will pass before it becomes possible to state any tangible climate change.

Scenario 2 – Global warming will occur relatively fast

It is the most “popular” scenario nowadays. According to different estimations, over the past 100 years the average temperature on our planet has risen by 0.5-1° С, concentration of CO2 has grown by 20-24%, and concentration of the methane by 100%. In the future, these processes will have further continuation and by the end of the 21st century the average temperature of the Earth surface will have risen from 1.1 to 6.4° С as compared with 1990 (according to IPCC prediction, from 1.4 to 5.8°С). Further melting of Arctic and Antarctic ices can accelerate the process of global warming because of the change in planet albedo. As stated by some scientists, the ice caps of the planet alone due to reflection of solar radiation are cooling our planet by 2° С, and the covering ice on the ocean surface considerably slows down the heat exchange process between relatively warm oceanic waters and colder atmospheric surface layer. In addition, there is nearly no the main greenhouse gas, water steam, above the ice caps, because it is frozen out.

The global warning will be accompanied by rise in the World Ocean level. During the period from 1995 to 2005, the World Ocean level went up by 4 cm instead of forecasted 2 cm. If the World Ocean level keeps rising at the same rate, the total rise of its level will have been 30-50 cm by the end of the 21st century. It will cause partial inundation of many coastal areas, especially densely populated coastal areas in Asia. It should be remembered that about 100 million people on the Earth live at the altitude lower than 88 cm above sea level. In addition to the rise of the World Ocean level the global warming has an effect on the wind force and precipitation distribution over the planet. As a result, the frequency and scale of different natural calamities (storms, hurricanes, droughts, floods) will increase on the planet.

At the present time, 2% of the whole dry land suffer from drought; some scientists predict that by 2050 10% of all the continental lands will suffer from drought. Moreover, seasonal rainfall pattern will change.

Scenario 3 – Global warming in some parts of the Earth will give way to cold snap

It is well known that one of the factors of ocean current initiation is the temperature gradient (difference) between arctic and tropical waters. Melting of polar ice contributes to the rise in the temperature of Arctic water and consequently provokes the reduction of temperature difference between tropical and arctic waters, which will inevitably lead to slowdown of currents in future. The Gulf Stream is one of the most famous warm currents on the planet thanks to which the average annual temperature in many European countries is higher by 10 degrees than that in other similar climatic zones of the Earth. It is clear that a stop of this oceanic “warmth conveyor” will have a great influence on the Earth’s climate. Even now the Gulf Stream has become weaker by 30% in comparison with that for 1957. The mathematical simulation has shown that it is enough for the temperature to rise by 2-2.5 degrees to completely stop the Gulf Stream. At present, the temperature of the Northern Atlantic has already warmed up by 0.2 degrees as compared with the same in the 1970s. If the Gulf Stream stops, the average annual European temperature would decrease by 1 degree by 2010, and after 2010 the average annual temperature would go up further. Other mathematical models forecast more intensive fall of temperature in the Europe.

According to these mathematical estimations, complete cessation of the Gulf Stream will take place in 20 years, as a result the climate of Northern Europe, Ireland, Iceland, and Great Britain will become colder than the actual one by 4-6 degrees, rains will become more heavier and storms will become more frequent. The temperature fall will also affect the Netherlands, Belgium, Scandinavia and the northern European part of Russia. Since 2020-2030 the warming in the Europe will recommence according to Scenario 2.

Scenario 4 – Global warming will give way to global cooling

Stopping of the Gulf Stream and other oceanic currents will cause global warming on the Earth and coming of next ice age.

Scenario 5 – Greenhouse catastrophe

The Greenhouse catastrophe is the most “unaccepted” scenario out of the global warming development processes. The author of the theory is our scientist A.V. Kharnauhov, the main point of which consists in the following. A rise in the average annual temperature on the Earth following the increase of the concentration of anthropogenic CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere will cause transfer of CO2 dissolved in the ocean to the atmosphere and provoke decomposition of sedimentary carbonate rocks with additional release of carbon dioxide which in its turn will entail further rise in the Earth’s temperature. This process will cause further decomposition of carbonates located in deeper layers of the Earth crust (there is 60 times more carbon dioxide in the ocean and almost 50,000 times more in the Earth crust than in the atmosphere). The glaciers will intensively melt diminishing the Earth albedo. Such a rapid temperature rise will contribute to intensive methane release from the melting permafrost, and the temperature rise by up to 1.4-5.8° С by the end of the century will be conducive to the decomposition of methanegydrates (icy compounds of water and methane) concentrated mainly in the cold areas of the Earth.

Taking into consideration that methane is a greenhouse gas that is 21 times stronger than CO2, the temperature rise on the Earth seems to be disastrous. To better imagine what is going to happen to the Earth, the best way is to look at our neighbor in the Solar System, the planet Venus. With the atmospheric parameters similar to those of the Earth, the temperature on the Venus must be higher than the Earth’s temperature only by 60° С (the Venus is closer to the Sun than the Earth), which should be about 75° С, but actually its surface temperature comes to almost 500° С. The majority of carbonate and methane-containing compounds on the Venus were destroyed a long time ago with release of carbon dioxide and methane. At the present time, 98% of the Venus atmosphere consists of CO2, which causes the planet temperature to rise almost by 400° С.

If the global warming has the same scenario as on the Venus, the temperature if the Earth surface atmospheric layers may reach 150° С. The temperature rise even by 50° С will destroy the human civilization, and the temperature rise by 150° С will kill almost all the living organisms on our planet.

According to the optimistic scenario by Karnaukhov, if the amount of CO2 released to the atmosphere remains unchanged, then in 300 years the temperature on the Earth will reach 50° С, and 150° С in 6000 years. Unfortunately, the progress can not be stopped, so the amount of CO2 emission is growing up from year to year. According to the realistic scenario, which supposes the CO2 emission rated doubling every 50 years, the temperature of 50° С will set on the Earth in 100 years, and 150° С in 300 years.

Source: Possible scenarios of climatic situation development in the context of global warming