Preface
This section is dedicated to the research that I have done as an intern at NASA. Hopefully it will encourage and enlighten you! For the past 3 years, I have worked as an intern at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Throughout that time, I have been able to use NASA supercomputers to better understand the issue we face today in global warming. I have grown a lot from the experience and have had a lot of fun along the way. The following research is original writing I did for this website and for my research project at NASA. I want to thank the great sources I had and note that they can be found at the bottom of this page. I hope you enjoy reading about my experience at NASA!
A Study of Carbon Dioxide by Vighnesh Sachidananda
An Introduction to the Problem
Since the Industrial Revolution, the earth has witnessed an increase in average surface temperatures around the world. Extensive research shows that the majority of this climate change is due to an increase in greenhouse gases (i.e. carbon dioxide and water vapor) in the Earth's atmosphere. The greatest cause of this increase in greenhouse gases is the burning of fossil fuels. The greenhouse gases we burn collect in the atmosphere, trap the radiation we receive from the sun, and consequently cause the planet to warm up. This phenomenon is known as global warming. Although some greenhouse gases are needed in the atmosphere to maintain global warmth, excessive amounts trap too much heat.
The greatest cause of global warming is water vapor, a gas whose presence in the atmosphere has not been largely influenced by humans. However, the second most prevalent greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, has seen increased concentrations in our atmosphere due to human activity. We can manage the state of global warming through the effective regulation of carbon dioxide. Without this regulation, global warming could do prodigious harm to the planet, something that is already being seen.
The effects of global warming have been devastating and prove a monumental challenge to overcome. Some ramifications of global warming include intense droughts, increased wildfires, heat waves and most importantly, the melting of ice and decline of snow accumulation (Natural Resources Defense Council, 2005). The melting of ice is of noted importance because, as a very sensitive region, it foretells the changes that will occur as global warming progresses in magnitude. This is because the change in average temperature in the Arctic is rising twice as fast as anywhere else in the world, causing changes to the nature of the Arctic as a whole.
In an effort to study the causes of global climate change, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has created many General Circulation Models (GCMs) that accurately represent climate change as a response to different stimuli. The Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) has developed the newest GCM, “Model E.” Model E uses principles of physics to predict climate trends when variables such as solar energy are changed. Through the use of the Grid Analysis and Display System (GrADS), one can plot the data generated by the model and observe long term effects. By analyzing these trends, we can examine the effects of the greenhouse effect and global warming on our planet.
By generating the correlation between Carbon Dioxide and the expanse of ice on the earth, we can find the extent of man-made actions on our planet. We can understand the precautions that need to be taken and the extent to which the greenhouse gases that we emit affect us.
Using General Circulation Models to Analyze Climate Trends
By changing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere we can comprehensively change the climate, something that has scientists concerned. The aerosol humidification of the planet in models when changed has consequently changed variables such as cloud fraction and condensation (Jeong, Li, Andrews and Tsay, 2007). The use of models has enabled us to see the relation between variables that are generally considered unrelated.
The GISS model E has “fully interactive land, multilayer ocean and a dynamic atmosphere" (Sud, Walker, Zhou, Schmidt, Lau, and Cahalan, 2008) that are projected with “parameterized physics" (Sud et al, 2008). It is developed by the Goddard Institute of Space Studies and is used by scientists to better understand the relationship between Earth’s variables and the threats that global warming poses to us. It elucidates the effects of global warming and helps us analyze climate trends. Without the model E and other General Circulation Models, the proper understanding of climate change would never be realized.
The Kyoto Protocol
Extensive research shows that the majority of climate change from global warming is due to the increase in greenhouse gases (Natural Resources Defense Council, 2005). Although the presence of water vapor in our atmosphere is not man-made, the presence of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide is. Numerous countries have vehemently proposed the active regulation of carbon dioxide. One such proposal is known as the Kyoto Protocol.
The Kyoto Protocol is "aimed at reducing the human impact on climate change" (Wijen and Zoeteman, 2005). Many believe that the agreement "is undoubtedly the most prominent global environmental agreement" (Wijen and Zoeteman, 2005). It requires that countries regulate the fossil fuel they use, thus maintaining out impact on the climate and endowing our posterity with a more comfortable life. The short term goal for the Kyoto Protocol is to "reduce human-induced" greenhouse gas "concentrations by an average of 5.2 per cent over the period 2008-2012 ('first commitment period'), as compared with the base year, 1990" (Wijen and Zoeteman, 2005). This is certainly a pragmatic and realistic goal and with over one hundred countries having already signed the contract, the impact will be monumental. The United States has yet to sign the contract, however, posing a concern considering that the United States is responsible for "25 percent of the carbon dioxide pollution" emitted (Natural Resources Defense Council, 2005).
The Early Days of My Internship
The first time I got Model E to run on my computer, I remember how ecstatic I was. It took me almost the whole summer to get the climate change model to run on my computer, a really old machine with an Ubuntu operating system. I was accessing the supercomputer I was compiling the model on using SSH and had trouble the whole ways through but I was truly happy the first time I saw the model produce gridded results. Below are some of the first pictures of my climate change model runs at NASA.
After working at NASA for a couple of years, I was able to learn more about the computers I was using to create plots, the science behind climate change models, and the plots I was producing. I was able to learn a lot about the significance of the atmospheric variables (i.e. sea surface temperature, air pressure and solar irradiance) I was plotting and their impact on the world. Below are some recent plots I have produced using the climate change models I have run at NASA. The pictures demonstrate a difference in atmospheric variables since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
Sources
1. Marshak, A, Wen, G, Coakley, J., Remer, L, Loeb, N. G., and Cahalan, R. F., 2008: A simple model for the cloud adjacency effect and the apparent bluing of aerosols near clouds. J. Geophys. Res., 113, D14S17, doi:10.1029/2007JD009196
2. Sud, Y. C., Walker, G. K., Zhou, Y. P., Schmidt, G. A., Lau, W. K. and Cahalan, R. F., 2008: Effects of doubled CO2 on tropical Sea-Surface Temperatures (SSTs) for onset of deep convection and maximum SST – GCM simulations based inferences. Geophy. Res. Lett. 35, L12707, doi:10.1029/2008GL033872
3. (2007). Global Warming Basics. Retrieved November 21, 2008, from Natural Resources Defense Council Web site: http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/f101.asp
4. Jeong, M. J., Li, Z., Andrews, E., and Tsay, S. C., 2007: Effect of Aerosol Humidification on the Column Aerosol Optical Thickness over the ARM Southern Great Plains Site. J. Geophys. Res, 112, D10202, doi:10.1029/2006JD007176
5. Koren, I., Remer, L. A., Kaufman, Y. J., Rudich, Y., and Martins, J. V., 2007: On the twilight zone between clouds and aerosols. Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L08805, doi:10.1029/2007GL029253
6. Jin, M., Shepherd, J. M., and Peters-Lidard, C. 2007: Development of a parameterization for simulating the urban temperature hazard using satellite observations in climate model. Nature Hazards, DOI 10.1007/s11069-007-9117-2
(Note: These sources have been used in addition to the in text citations)
