Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
climate for some time after that, however, and the
estimates of CO
2
-induced temperature increases
calculated by Arrhenius in 1903 were not bettered
until the early 1960s (Bolin 1972). Occasional
papers on the topic appeared (e.g. Callendar 1938;
Revelle and Seuss 1957; Bolin 1960), but interest
only began to increase significantly in the early
1970s, as part of a growing appreciation of the
potentially dire consequences of human interference
in the environment. Increased CO
2
production and
rising atmospheric turbidity were recognized as two
important elements capable of causing changes in
climate. The former had the potential to cause
greater warming, whereas the latter was considered
more likely to cause cooling (Schneider and
Mesirow 1976). For a time it seemed that the
cooling would dominate (Calder 1974, Ponte
1976), but results from a growing number of
investigations into greenhouse warming, published
in the early 1980s, changed that (e.g. Idso 1980;
Manabe
et al.
1981; Schneider and Thompson
1981; Pittock and Salinger 1982; Mitchell 1983;
NRC 1982 and 1983). They revealed that scientists
had generally underestimated the speed with which
the greenhouse effect was intensifying, and had
failed to appreciate the impact of the subsequent
global warming on the environment or on human
activities.
Worldwide concern, coupled with a sense of
urgency uncommon in the scientific community,
led to a conference on the 'International
Assessment of the Role of Carbon Dioxide and
other Greenhouse Gases in Climate Variations
and Associated Impact', held at Villach, Austria
in October 1985. To ensure the follow-up of the
recommendations of that conference, an
Advisory Group on Greenhouse Gases (AGGG)
was established under the auspices of the
International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU),
the United Nations Environment Program
(UNEP) and the World Meteorological
Organization (WMO) (Environment Canada
1986). The main tasks of the AGGG were to
carry out biennial reviews of international and
regional studies related to the greenhouse gases,
to conduct aperiodic assessments of the rates of
increases in the concentrations of greenhouse
gases, and to estimate the effects of such increases.
Beyond this, they also supported further studies
of the socio-economic impacts of climatic change
produced by the greenhouse gases, and identified
areas such as the monsoon region of south-east
Asia, the Great Lakes region of North America
and the circumpolar Arctic as likely candidates
for increased investigation. The AGGG suggested
that the dissemination of information on recent
developments to a wide audience was also
important, and in keeping with that viewpoint
Environment Canada began the production of a
regular newsletter to highlight current events in
CO
2
/climate research. Its annual reports
Understanding CO
2
and Climate,
published in
1986 and 1987, were also devoted to that theme.
Throughout the 1980s, Environment Canada
funded research on the environmental and socio-
economic impacts of global warming in such
areas as agriculture, natural resource
development and recreation and tourism. The
Department of Energy in the United States has
also been active in the field with more broadly
based reports on the effects of increasing CO
2
levels on vegetation (Strain and Cure 1985) and
on climate (MacCracken and Luther 1985a and
1985b) as well as the effects of future energy use
and technology on the emission of CO
2
(Edmonds
et al.
1986; Cheng
et al.
1986).
In Europe, Flohn's (1980) study of the climatic
consequences of global warming caused by
human activities, for the International Institute
for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), included
consideration of CO
2
. More recently, the
Commission of European Communities (CEC)
funded research into the socio-economic impacts
of climate changes which might be caused by a
doubling of atmospheric CO
2
(Meinl
et al.
1984;
Santer 1985). Most of these investigations
involved the use of GCMs. The UK
Meteorological Office five-layer GCM, for
example, provided information on CO
2
-induced
climatic change over western Europe (Wilson and
Mitchell 1987). Several other European
countries, including Germany and the
Netherlands, also launched research
programmes.
