Climate--The average weather over years and longer…

Chapter 1 frontispiece. Satellite view looking east from Patagonia over southern Argentina and the South Atlantic Ocean

E.A. Mathez, 2009, Climate Change: The Science of Global Warming and Our Energy Future, Columbia University Press. Source: NASA

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Chapter 1 frontispiece. Satellite view looking east from Patagonia over southern Argentina and the South Atlantic Ocean

E.A. Mathez, 2009, Climate Change: The Science of Global Warming and Our Energy Future, Columbia University Press. Source: NASA

ocean: 1000x heat,50x carbon

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Figure 1.1. The dynamic climate system

E.A. Mathez, 2009, Climate Change: The Science of Global Warming and Our Energy Future, Columbia University Press.

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Table 1.1. Different timescales of weather and climate

E.A. Mathez, 2009, Climate Change: The Science of Global Warming and Our Energy Future, Columbia University Press. Source: Christy et al., 2006

daily warm days, cool nights

3-7 days weather events, e.g., passages of fronts

yearly seasons

2-7 years El Niño events (ENSO)

1-3 decades oscillations in atmospheric circulation patterns, e.g., North Atlantic

centuries multi-century cold and warm periods

104 - 105 years Milankovitch cycles

> 106 years positions of continents, changes in atmospheric composition, changes in solar luminosity

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Figure 1.2. The Keeling curve

E.A. Mathez, 2009, Climate Change: The Science of Global Warming and Our Energy Future, Columbia University Press. Source: Scripps Institution of Oceanography CO2 Program

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Figure 1.3. The change in the average global land-surface air temperature relative to the 1961–1990 mean temperature

E.A. Mathez, 2009, Climate Change: The Science of Global Warming and Our Energy Future, Columbia University Press. Source: Trenbreth et al., 2007

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