Department of
Meteorology

Special
Announcement

Meteorology 597B
The Global Carbon Cycle

Spring Semester 2004

3 credits

Time: To be arranged

Instructor: Prof. Ken Davis

Contact: davis@essc.psu.edu

Purpose and Content

Is this course for you? It is…

• If you have an interest in one of the most challenging, long-term global environmental issues of our era – the accumulation of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere due to human modification of the global carbon cycle. This course will focus on the science of the global carbon cycle – sources and sinks; mechanisms, measurements and models; responses to changing climate, environment, and human activity. Terrestrial, oceanic, atmospheric and anthropogenic processes will be considered.
  
• If you have a background in quantitative sciences or engineering (calculus and physical and/or biological sciences). Science or engineering does not need to be your primary area of study. The course should be suitable for graduate students from a wide variety of programs across the university, in addition to well-prepared and motivated upper-level undergraduates.
  
• If you are interested in a course that mixes the traditional problem-set/exam format with a substantial dose of hands-on experimental work, study of current literature, proposal writing and collaborative problem solving. Independent learning will be necessary. You will experiment with state-of-the-art methodology.

Topics

Link to climate
Overview of the impacts of increasing CO2 concentrations on the earth’s climate system: infrared radiative impacts, ecosystem fertilization, and alterations of plant stomatal functioning.

Atmosphere

• Current global CO2 budget – sources and sinks, causes of atmospheric accumulation.
• Evidence for oceanic and terrestrial sinks of CO2
  Annual cycle, interhemispheric gradient, and interannual variability in global atmospheric budget.
• Use of CO2(x,t) to infer surface sources/sinks of CO2.

Oceans

• The inorganic chemistry of carbon dioxide in the ocean
• The cycle of organic matter: nutrients, transport, sediments.
• The cycle of calcium carbonate: Biological precipitation, chemical dissolution, sediments.
• Air-sea exchange of carbon dioxide: The solubility pump, equilibrium time, surface ocean pCO2.
• Relative strengths of the carbon pumps; Oceanic buffers of atmospheric CO2.
• Transport mechanisms from terrestrial systems to the oceans

Land

• Role of soils, forests and crops in the CO2 budget.
• Processes: Photosynthesis, respiration, disturbance, succession, transport/burial.
• Terrestrial carbon stocks and fluxes.
• Methods of quantifying – flux measurements, carbon stock inventories.
• Remote sensing and modeling of terrestrial ecosystems.
• C3 vs. C4 vegetation and carbon cycling.

Human activity
Sources of CO2 emissions; accounting for anthropogenic emissions.

Tracers
Use of 13C, CO, O2, etc to distinguish ocean/land, C3/C4; anthropogenic/biological processes.

Geology and the paleorecord

• Geological contributions to the global carbon cycle: Weathering and burial rates and mechanisms.
• CO2 record in the atmosphere on time scales of thousands to millions of years.
• Causes of the variability in atmospheric CO2 over the paleo record.

Change in the global system

• Responses to a changing physical environment: Precip, surface temp, ocean circulation.
• Responses to changing biogeochemistry: CO2 enrichment, nitrogen fertilization, air quality.

Economics and management

• Integrated assessment of the carbon cycle: cost-benefit analyses, alternative analyses.
• Greenhouse gas management strategies: Emissions abatement, sequestration.
• Critical issues: How realistic are the estimates of economic damages due to climate change? What is an appropriate discount rate? How does scientific uncertainty influence management strategy?

Global issues

• A brief assessment of the Kyoto protocol.
• A brief review of the IPCC reports on climate change and the global carbon cycle.