Global Climate Change Technology and Carbon-Cycle Projection Models :: Greenhouse Gases Pollution

Global Climate Change Technology and Carbon-Cycle Projection Models Introduction â€Å"Global climate change† is the hippest buzz phrase for radical environmentalists, dutiful scientists, industry heads, and policy-makers alike. Philosophically, it is proof that the environment is humanity’s connective tissue; whether your life’s work is spent tilling a field, manufacturing steel, or conducting conference calls, global climate change affects you. The gravity of this human-environment issue is highlighted in the headlines of the EPA’s â€Å"Science and Policy News†: â€Å"Researchers See ‘No Doubt’ of Human Influence on Climate,† â€Å"Climate Change May Be Greater Threat to Biodiversity than Habitat Loss,† â€Å"Largest Arctic Ice Shelf Breaks Up† (http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming.nsf/content/NewsandEventsScienceandPolicyNews.html). To ensure the further sustainable progress of humanity, it is critical that we work to understand our relationship to climate and its changes. This paper is an assessment of the current work being done to foster that understanding. Specifically, it evaluates global climate change modeling technology, especially the carbon-cycle models imperative for emissions-reduction policy. Climate Science Driven by interactions between the atmosphere, the sea, and life on land, climate is the â€Å"average weather† of Earth (http://www.met-office.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/models/climate_system.html). The climate system is the sum of the gas, heat, and momentum exchanges that take place between all the components of climate: the atmosphere, the biosphere, the cryosphere (icy earth surfaces), and the land surface. Global climate determines the Earth’s weather; tropical storms, drought, and other large-scale weather events can have catastrophic effects on human communities. Global climate determines Earth’s seasons; crop growing seasons ebb and flow with annual rain and sun variations. Global climate determines the terrestrial and oceanic composition of Earth; should average global temperature rise enough, ice caps and glaciers melt, increasing sea levels on coastal zone where millions of people live. In short, the global climate system influences the most ba sic processes we depend on for survival. A bare-bones definition of climate change refers to variations in climate within different time scales, or to a change in the long-term weather patterns on the planet. However, the broader connotations of the term are critically important to an understanding of climate technology and its applications. Though climate change can be caused by fluctuations in Earth’s cycles and temperature due to â€Å"natural† flux in solar radiation, seasonality, or atmospheric concentration (as happens after a volcanic eruption), the term increasingly implies changes in global temperature with significant economic, social, and environmental ramifications (http://nsidc.