My opinion on climate change: the facts of reality.

 1) The biosphere, that is, an area of ​​the planet Earth where vital processes predominate, is a thin layer of just over 10 kilometers thick. In astronomical and geological terms it is a fragile environment that needs to be systematically and preventively observed by the human societies that inhabit it.

2) Precisely, the growing and cumulative presence of human societies in the biosphere is producing effects at local and regional levels. There are modifications of ecosystems, bodies and water courses and the composition and behavior of the atmosphere in their lower layers.

3) On a global level, there are also effects although it is much more difficult to identify and evaluate them.

4) The composition of the atmosphere is undergoing variations, one of the most important is the increase in CO2 that went from 0.03% to 0.04% in the last 100 years.

5) This increase may be due to the widespread use of mineral fuels, although it may also be partly due to volcanic emissions and the release of dissolved CO2 in the oceans.

6) C02 is a greenhouse gas that can have an effect by increasing the global temperature.

7) At the same time CÖ2 (which is not a contaminant but a nutrient) has the effect of increasing plant production with (positive) impact on natural vegetation and crops.

8) Water vapor is a strong greenhouse gas (produces heating) much more than CO2, but when condensed in clouds, it generates the opposite effect. For that reason the dynamics of atmospheric water is extremely important in the definition of meteorological processes and climatic trends.

9) Human action has thrown huge amounts of aerosols into the atmosphere, especially in arid and industrial and urban regions.

10) Aerosols function as dew points of water vapor forming clouds, which are generally not rain clouds.

11) The clouds have a strong albedo (reflective capacity of radiation) so, as we indicated before, they produce cooling.

12) The combined impacts of aerosols and greenhouse gases are offset. It is difficult to know if the final effect is heating or cooling.

13) Glaciers are melting in some places (Antarctic Peninsula, Greenland) but ice is increasing in thickness in the center of Antarctica. The overall balance of ice melting is difficult to measure but is probably negative. It requires confirmation.

14) Ocean levels have been rising 2 mm per year measured by satellites. It can be estimated that this increase corresponds to about 20 cm per century. So there is no urgency to take radical measures on the coasts but long-term (centuries) decisions may be necessary.

15) These changes in ocean levels are difficult to perceive locally because there are continental areas that emerge and others that submerge for geological reasons.

16) On the other hand, geological records show that this rise is small compared to the rise in ocean levels at the end of the ice age about 11,000 to 10,000 years ago and in other geological periods.

17) Global warming is not proven. Urban areas have increased where there is indeed a rise in local temperature relative to adjacent rural areas. In less populated areas and oceans that warming has not been effectively measured. There may be some thermal variation but it is very difficult to register. The thermal behaviors at ground level are very variable depending on the relief and the atmospheric circulation. At the level of a few thousand meters (satellite measurements) it has not been proven.

18) The frequency or intensity of hurricanes has not increased.

19) All of the above does not mean that there is no climate change. Without a doubt there are a local and regional changes and surely there are also global changes but these last ones would be changes that require many decades and even centuries to register and evaluate,

20) On a scale of centuries, or perhaps millennia, then, human action can modify the atmosphere so as to make it detrimental to human life and some kinds of higher organisms.

21) The reduction of CO2 generation and the aerosol emission can be measures that could reduce the magnitude of these changes.

22) Pollution of inland waters and coastal areas has no major effect globally but can cause serious damage to aquatic life and the human societies that depend on it.

23) Other changes in the atmosphere (eg increased acidity expressed in acid rain, concentrations of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, lead, etc.) have local or regional effect but their incidence at the level Global does not seem significant.

24) Based on the above, and particularly considering the geological record of paleoclimates, it can be presumed that global climate change would indeed be taking place but this change may be very slow (on a scale of many decades or centuries) and what is more significant, very difficult to measure.

25) In short, although there is no place for immediate alarm, it is necessary to define objectives and methods, based on scientific data (and not on catastrophic journalistic information) where political authorities can consider appropriate medium and long-term strategies.

26) In order to develop and implement them, a complex of corporate and political interests must be overcome to whom these strategies may harm.

27) In all of the above, we have not considered the implications that geopolitical and social inequalities would have on the development of possible strategies required, including land use changes (eg deforestation), increased runoff, decreased or increased evaporation and human migrations.

Danilo Anton

September 28, 2019