THE WORLD IS NOT RUNNING OUT OF OIL!!!!

(That is a problem)

Conventional Oil Production

The New Oil Fields

Coal can be converted to liquid fuel

We are running out of atmosphere faster than we are

running out of fossil fuels

Oil + Oxygen CO2 + water + energy

Rainforest + Oxygen CO2 + water + fire

Food + Oxygen CO2 + water + satisfaction

How humans add carbon dioxide

The air you breathe:Nitrogen (79%)Oxygen (20%)

Carbon Dioxide?-- Trace

Increasing Carbon Dioxide: the Greenhouse Effect

Image source: DOE website

1896: Crazy Swede accurately predicts impact of greenhouse gases?

• Svante Arrhenius– discoverer of the Greenhouse Effect

• Predicted 7-11 degree warming with doubling of carbon dioxide

• Current predictions similar

Carbon dioxide directly measured since late 1950s

Sources of carbon dioxide released by US

Image source: DOE website

DIRECTOBESERVATIONS

(Fig SPM-3, IPCC 2007)

Reconstructed global temps(source: National Research Council 2006)

Carbon dioxide levels

• 1850: 270 ppm

• Now: 384 ppm

• 2009: 388 ppm

• 2100: 550+ ppm

• If we burned all known fossil fuel reserves: 1900 ppm

Future Temperature in MinnesotaYear: 2100 CO2: 550 ppm

• Temp increase- global surface average (IPCC 2007)

Range= 3.6-8.1 FMean = 8.1 F for land, 5.2 for oceanMean = 5.4 F for Central America, 14.4 F for

Northern Canada

• Temp increase in MNMuch greater than global average in winterSlightly greater during summer

Precipitation changes?

• Much harder to predict than temperature

• Consensus estimate for Upper Midwest (IPCC 2001):– 5-20% wetter winters– 5-20% drier summers

Future drought may be severeNAST 2000

Climate Change in Minnesota

Will Minnesota become one big prairie?

Minnesotans for an Energy Efficient Economyhttp://www.me3.org/issues/climate/

Pollen record reveals past vegetation

Arabidopsis pollen

History of Forest Movement in Minnesota

• Pollen and charcoal suggest that prairie-forest border has swung wildly

• “Grassiness” last peaked 6000-9000 years ago with warm dry climate

• “Woodiness” waxes and wanes on decade to century scale.

Source: Clark et al. (2001) Ecology 82: 620-636.

12,000 Years of the Prairie-Forest Border (history of the Clark et al. 2001 study sites)

North Dakota

Minnesota Wisconsin

12,000 Forest Forest Forest

9,000 Prairie Prairie Forest

6,000 Prairie Prairie / Forest Mix

Forest

3,000 Prairie Forest Forest

Now Prairie Forest Forest

How can this be avoided?

What to do? Pacala and Socolow 2004 advocate 7 x

1GT “stabilization wedges”