WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT
GLOBAL WARMING?

OUR PLANET IS GETTING WARMER.

 

Scientists are studying Earth’s climate to answer understand how much and how fast.

 

The story of understanding climate began in the early 20th century, while studying climate components for weather forecastings.

 

But let's start from the beginning to understand the process...

FROM CLIMATE TO PHENOMENA

FROM EQUATIONS

TO SYSTEM

To simulate basic physical phenomenons, scientists had to translate them into complex systems of equations that needed too much time to be calculated.

Physical phenomena affect each other. To simulate the whole climate, all equations have to be calculated together. This requires even higher computational power.

FROM PHENOMENA TO EQUATIONS

Model used in IPCC

Research center

1 hard disk= 10 Terabyte

Research center

Model

SO, ARE THE MODELS PERFECT?

There are different theories and ways to calculate the various mechanisms in models (e.g. water vapour and warming, clouds and radiation, ocean circulation...).

For this reason, models may simulate quite different responses to the same forcing, simply because of the way certain feedbacks are modeled.

 

Each model responds in slightly different ways that are difficult to predict because of climate sensitivity (how much our climate changes when one factor does?) and  climate variability, the natural tendence of climate to change on long term.

 

Scientific progress solved a lot of problems but still there are some questions that will take time to be answered. When all answers will be found, we will be able to represent precisely our climate shape.

WHO IS TRYING TO ANSWER?

208 RESEARCH CENTERS STUDYING CLIMATE

Research centers from all over the world partecipate in studying climate.

They work constantly to improve models and find answers to unsolved problems.

198  research centers

from 185 countries take part into IPCC

THE MODELS: WHO AND WHEN

THE IPCC

 

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

is a scientific intergovernmental body estabilished in 1988.

 

ITS MISSION:

 

provide comprehensive scientific assessments of current scientific, technical and socio-economic information worldwide about the risk of climate change caused by human activity, its potential environmental and socio-economic consequences and possible options for adapting to these consequences or mitigating the effects.

Thousands of scientists and other experts contribute (on a voluntary basis, without payment) to writing and reviewing reports.

It provides an internationally accepted authority on climate

change, producing reports which have the agreement of leading

climate scientists.

NUMBERS OF SCIENTISTS THAT PARTECIPATE AT IPCC IN YEARS:

DATA ELABORATED FOR LAST THREE REPORTS:

2001:

0,4 Terabyte

2007:

35 Terabyte

How many data in 2013?

Click to the arrow to see!

2013:

30.000 Terabyte

As you can see, technology is evolving really fast,

as a consequence projections are now more realistic than ever.

HOW WILL THE CLIMATE BE IN 2065

ACCORDING TO THE PROJECTIONS?

IPCC’s projections for 2014 report are that our climate temperature will rise from a minimum of 1°C to 2°C.

SO...ARE THE MODELS RELIABLE OR NOT?

IT'S YOUR TURN TO FIND

THE CONNECTIONS

In the graph below you can find who are the websites that are talking about climate change and what are their main opinions.

Here you can easily find who is telling what and how the websites are linked just by clicking on an opinion.

 

It's up to you to go deep in the topic and discover more!

A project by:

 

Clara Gargano

Alessia Mennuni

Matteo Morelli

Dario Monetini

Carlotta Serri

Faculty:

 

Paolo Ciuccarelli

Marco Fattore

Stefano Mandato

Donato Ricci

Salvatore Zingale

Teaching Assistants:

 

Matteo Azzi

Giorgio Caviglia

Michele Mauri

Azzurra Pini

Giorgio Uboldi