Lecture 3 Climate Fdundamentals and Impact

Gang He

February 10, 2025

A five points “climate haiku”

  1. It’s warming
  2. It’s us
  3. We’re sure
  4. It’s bad
  5. We can fix it

Source: Kimberly A Nicholas

Five stages of climate denial

  • Stage 1: Deny the Problem Exists
  • Stage 2: Deny We’re the Cause
    • Stage 2b: Consensus Denial
  • Stage 3: Deny It’s a Problem
  • Stage 4: Deny We can Solve It
  • Stage 5: It’s too Late

Source: Dana Nuccitelli, The Guardian, The 5 stages of climate denial are on display ahead of the IPCC report

Climate and Weather

Climate is the average weather conditions of a region over a long period of time, usually at least 30 years. Weather refers to short-term atmospheric conditions. Climate change refers to long-term changes.

Weather refers to short-term atmospheric conditions. Climate change refers to long-term changes.

Source: National Geographic

GHG effect

Source: IPCC

Greenhouse Gases(GHG)

GHG GWP-100 Lifetime (Years)
Carbon Dioxide (CO2) 1 hundreds
Methane (CH4) 29.8±11 11.8 ± 1.8
Nitrous Oxide (N2O) 273 ± 130 109 ± 10
Hydrofluorocarbon-32 (HFC-32) 771 ± 292 5.4 ± 1.1

Other GHG:

  • Sulphur hexafluoride (SF6)
  • PFC-14 (CF4)
  • Water vapour

Source: Table 7.15 in the IPCC AR6 WG-I Report.

From emissions to warming

Source: IPCC AR6

Warming since measurement

Source: NASA

Warming in context of geological history

Source: NASA

Warmer and Warmer

Source: Koomey and Monroe (2022)

Climate spireal

Source: NASA Scientific Visulization Studio

Temprature anomaly distribution

Source: Hansen, Sato, and Ruedy (2012)

Human vs nature

Source: Chapter 3 of the Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4)

Human component is the major driver of warming

Source: Chapter 3 of the Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4)

Scientific understanding: climate systems

Source: Figure 2.2 of the Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4)

Scientific community and process

  • What is the IPCC?
  • How does the IPCC select its authors?
  • What literature does the IPCC assess?
  • How does the IPCC review process work?
  • How does the IPCC approve reports?
  • How does the IPCC deal with alleged errors?
  • What is an Expert Reviewer of IPCC?

Source: Learn more about IPCC

Adverse impacts of climate change

Source: IPCC AR6 Synthesis Repoort Figure 1

The impacts are global

Source: IPCC AR6 Synthesis Repoort Figure 2.3.1

Vulnerable population suffers more

Source: IPCC AR6 Synthesis Repoort Figure 2.3.2

Conventional focues

  • Ice melting
  • Sea level rising
  • Extreme weathers
    • Floods
    • Droughts

Damages to include

  • agriculture
  • mortality
  • energy
  • low-risk labor
  • high-risk labor
  • coastal damages
  • property crime
  • violent crime

What other damages to include?

Social economic impacts

Source: Carleton and Hsiang (2016)

Social cost of carbon

  • Marginal cost of carbon
  • Cost included:
    • Net agricultural productivity
    • Human health
    • Property damage
    • Energy system costs
  • Cost not included:
    • Unknown impact: physical, ecological, economic
    • Unknown cost: information

U.S. southern states suffer more

Source: S. Hsiang et al. (2017)

The poor will get damages more

Source: S. Hsiang et al. (2017)

Climate damage function

\(Economic\ Damage=f(\Delta temperature)\)

  • It could be negative or positive
  • Integrated Assessment Models/Economic models
    • DICE/RICE
    • FUND
    • PAGE

Read more: Neumann et al. (2020), Valuing Climate Changes: Updating Estimation of the Social Cost of Carbon Dioxide (2017)

Climate change and conflicts

Read more: S. M. Hsiang, Burke, and Miguel (2013)

Climate change affects energy system

Source: Yalew et al. (2020)

Climate impact to renewable supply-demand match

Source: Liu et al. (2023)

NYS climate impacts assessment

Source: New York State Climate Impacts Assessment

Grand challenges, huge progress, and grand opportunities

Source: Our World in Data

References

Carleton, Tamma A, and Solomon M Hsiang. 2016. “Social and Economic Impacts of Climate.” Science 353 (6304): aad9837. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aad9837.
Hansen, James, Makiko Sato, and Reto Ruedy. 2012. “Perception of Climate Change.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109 (37): E2415–23. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1205276109.
Hsiang, Solomon M., Marshall Burke, and Edward Miguel. 2013. “Quantifying the Influence of Climate on Human Conflict.” Science, August. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1235367.
Hsiang, Solomon, Robert Kopp, Amir Jina, James Rising, Michael Delgado, Shashank Mohan, D. J. Rasmussen, et al. 2017. “Estimating Economic Damage from Climate Change in the United States.” Science 356 (6345): 1362–69. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aal4369.
Koomey, Jonathan, and Ian Monroe. 2022. Solving Climate Change: A Guide for Learners and Leaders. IOP Publishing. https://iopscience.iop.org/book/mono/978-0-7503-4032-8.
Liu, Laibao, Gang He, Mengxi Wu, Gang Liu, Haoran Zhang, Ying Chen, Jiashu Shen, and Shuangcheng Li. 2023. “Climate Change Impacts on Planned Supply–Demand Match in Global Wind and Solar Energy Systems.” Nature Energy 8 (8): 870–80. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-023-01304-w.
Neumann, James E., Jacqueline Willwerth, Jeremy Martinich, James McFarland, Marcus C. Sarofim, and Gary Yohe. 2020. “Climate Damage Functions for Estimating the Economic Impacts of Climate Change in the United States.” Review of Environmental Economics and Policy 14 (1): 25–43. https://doi.org/10.1093/reep/rez021.
Valuing Climate Changes: Updating Estimation of the Social Cost of Carbon Dioxide. 2017. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/24651.
Yalew, Seleshi G, Michelle TH van Vliet, David EHJ Gernaat, Fulco Ludwig, Ariel Miara, Chan Park, Edward Byers, et al. 2020. “Impacts of Climate Change on Energy Systems in Global and Regional Scenarios.” Nature Energy 5 (10): 794–802. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-020-0664-z.

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