How can adding a bit more of a gas that makes up much less than 1% of the Earth’s atmosphere be responsible for causing the greatest environmental dilemma of our and our future generations’ time? In this talk, Art DeGaetano develops a very simple model of the Earth system; then, using some basic math and physics, shows how altering the atmosphere’s greenhouse gas concentration requires that the temperature of the Earth’s surface increase.
Learn how other man-made influences also affect the climate system and demonstrate how many of these changes are exacerbated by feedbacks. Then take a trip back in time to examine how atmospheric carbon dioxide has influenced the Earth’s temperature in the ancient past, how temperatures over the last century, and how continued increases in greenhouse gas concentrations are projected to affect the climate of the next 100 years, from both a global and a local prospective.