The Changing Global Environment

1. Front Matter

   Pages I-VIII

   PDF

2. Overviews on Global Effects of Pollution

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-5

      PDF

   2. Pollution Effects on Global Climate — An Introduction

      • S. Fred Singer

      Pages 7-12

   3. Climate Change and the Influence of Man’s Activities on the Global Environment

      • William W. Kellogg

      Pages 13-23

   4. Environmental Effects of Energy Production

      • S. Fred Singer

      Pages 25-44

3. Chemical Balance of Gases in the Earth’s Atmosphere

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 45-48

      PDF

   2. The Oxygen and Carbon Dioxide Balance in the Earth’s Atmosphere

      • Francis S. Johnson

      Pages 49-56

   3. Impact of Land and Sea Pollution on the Chemical Stability of the Atmosphere

      • F. D. Sisler

      Pages 57-71

   4. The Dependence of Atmospheric Temperature on the Concentration of Carbon Dioxide

      • Syukuro Manabe

      Pages 73-77

   5. Exchange of CO2 between Atmosphere and Sea Water: Possible Enzymatic Control of the Rate

      • Rainer Berger, Willard F. Libby

      Pages 79-82

   6. The Global Balance of Carbon Monoxide

      • Louis S. Jaffe

      Pages 83-110

   7. Gaseous Atmospheric Pollutants from Urban and Natural Sources

      • Elmer Robinson, Robert C. Robbins

      Pages 111-123

   8. Global Stratospheric Effects of Supersonic Transports

      • S. Fred Singer

      Pages 125-134

4. Effects of Atmospheric Pollution on Climate

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 135-137

      PDF

   2. Climatic Effects of Atmospheric Pollution

      • Reid A. Bryson, Wayne M. Wendland

      Pages 139-147

   3. A Reassessment of Atmospheric Pollution as a Cause of Long-Term Changes of Global Temperature

      • J. Murray Mitchell Jr.

      Pages 149-173

   4. Cloudiness and the Radiative, Convective Equilibrium

      • Syukuro Manabe

      Pages 175-176

   5. The Inadvertent Modification of the Atmosphere by Air Pollution

      • Vincent J. Schaefer

      Pages 177-196

   6. Man-Made Climatic Changes

      • H. E. Landsberg

      Pages 197-234

   7. The Upward Trend in Airborne Particulates That Isn’t

      • Hugh W. Ellsaesser

      Pages 235-269

We know a great deal about historical climate and its variations from various geo­ logical studies. There are two points worth remarking on. One is that the climate changes frequently and radically, but that the degree of variation and even sense of variation depends on the time scale which we are considering. Secondly, that this is a most unusual geological period for the Planet Earth; we are living in a period of mountain building and glaciations, whereas during most of the last 250 million years (m.y.) there was little ice and little topography. A good view of climate change of the last hundred m.y. can be gained by looking at the paper of Kellogg. We are now in a period of extensive glaciations. The previous interval occurred 300 to 250 m.y. ago, when even the Sahara was glaciated. (Of course, it was at that time near the position of the South Pole; we know that 300 m.y. ago the continents had not broken apart and formed one land mass.) Apparently between 250 and 20 m.y. ago there was little ice on the Earth, even at Antarctica. Continental basins were flooded by shallow seas. This was the period when plant life and marine life proliferated and when most of our fossil fuels were laid down.

• Cloud
• Precipitation
• Transport
• biosphere
• cloudiness
• ecosystem
• temperature

• University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA

  S. Fred Singer

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