Carbon Sequestration

Prof. D. P. Singh
Department of Earth Sciences
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Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee
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 Ongoing Climate Change
Group A Group B
Reality Hoax

Globe is Warming Globe is cooling

Man-Made Natural

CO2 is the reason No role of CO2

Mitigation Adaptability

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Geological history of Earth

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 Formation of Moon at 4.527 Ga

4.54 Ga Hadean Eon 4.54-4 Ga Formation of Primordial Atmosphere

Formation of Ocean
First life
Precambrian Archean Eon 4-2.50 Ga cooling and formation of continental plates
Earth's magnetic field was established
Photosynthesis Started
541 Ma Proterozoic Eon 2.50 Ga-541 Ma Great Oxidation Event
Snowball Earth
supercontinent cycle

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 Permian Period Cambrian explosion
541 Ma Cenozoic Era 66-0 Ma
Carboniferous Period Arthropods, molluscs, fish, amphibians, synapsids and
Devonian Period diapsids
Silurian Period Graptolite Trilobite Tabulate coral
Ordovician Period
Cambrian Period
Phanerozoic Eon Mesozoic Era 251-66 Ma

1. End Ordovician (Ordovician–Silurian extinction), ˜444 million years ago, Cooling.

2. Late Devonian, ~375 million years ago, Cooling.
3. End Permian (Permian–Triassic extinction event) , ~251 million years ago, Cooling.

Recent Paleozoic Era 541-251 Ma

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Mesozoic Era 251-66 Ma
1. End Triassic (Triassic–Jurassic extinction event), ~200 million years ago, Warming.
Cretaceous
Jurassic 2. End Cretaceous (Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event) ~66 million years ago, Warming.
Triassic
Conodont Ammonite

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Cenozoic Era 66-0 Ma Age of Mammals

Quaternary
Neogene
Paleogene

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Bruke et al., 2018.
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 Unit I
Climate drivers

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Status of climate change
Climate is the average weather in a given area over a longer period of time.

 Summer of 2023 was Earth's hottest summer on record, 0.23 ˚C

warmer than any other summer in NASA’s record.

 1.2 ˚C warmer than the average summer between 1951 and 1980.

 Global Temperatures Will Continue to Rise…

 Global sea level has risen about 8 inches since reliable record-
keeping began in 1880.

 Hurricane-associated storm intensity and rainfall rates will increase

as the climate continues to warm.

 Sea ice cover in the Arctic Ocean is expected to continue decreasing.

Extreme events such as heat wave, flood, forest fire and drought will
become more frequent.
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Evidences of climate change
• The planet's average surface temperature has risen about 1 degrees Celsius
since the late 19th century, a change driven largely by increased carbon dioxide
emissions into the atmosphere and other human activities. Most of the
warming occurred in the past 40 years, with the seven most recent years being
the warmest. The years 2016 and 2020 are tied for the warmest year on record.

• The ocean has absorbed much of this increased heat, with the top 100 meters
of ocean showing warming of 0.33 degrees Celsius since 1969. Earth stores 90%
of the extra energy in the ocean.

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The Ice Sheets Are Shrinking
• The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have decreased in
mass. Data from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate
Experiment show Greenland lost an average of 279 billion
tons of ice per year between 1993 and 2019, while
Antarctica lost about 148 billion tons of ice per year.

Glaciers Are Retreating

• Glaciers are retreating almost everywhere around the world
— including in the Alps, Himalayas, Andes, Rockies, Alaska,
and Africa.

• Both the extent and thickness of Arctic sea ice has declined
rapidly over the last several decades.

• Satellite observations reveal that the amount of spring snow

cover in the Northern Hemisphere has decreased over the
past five decades and the snow is melting earlier.

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 Extreme Events Are Increasing in Frequency
• The number of record high temperature events have been
increasing, while the number of record low temperature
events has been decreasing, since 1950. The India has also
witnessed increasing numbers of intense rainfall events.

Flood

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Sea Level Is Rising
• Global sea level rose about 8 inches (20 centimeters) in the last
century. The rate in the last two decades, however, is nearly double
that of the last century and accelerating slightly every year.

Ocean Acidification Is Increasing

• Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the acidity of surface
ocean waters has increased by about 30%. This increase is due to
humans emitting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and hence
more being absorbed into the ocean. The ocean has absorbed
between 20% and 30% of total anthropogenic carbon dioxide
emissions in recent decades (7.2 to 10.8 billion metric tons per year).

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Regional and global climate change

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Factors governing global climate change

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When continents move, ocean currents and wind patterns
changes causing climate change.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCEZFMtW5
Pw&ab_channel=GeographyLessons

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Natural and human-caused climate drivers

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Feedback mechanisms
A climate feedback mechanism is a process that either
escalates or diminishes the initial warming of Earth's climate.

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Radiative forcing
Radiative forcing is a measure of how the energy balance of the Earth–atmosphere system is influenced. The word
'radiative forcing' is used because these factors change the balance between incoming solar radiation and outgoing IR
radiation within the Earth's atmosphere.

Power coming into Earth - Power leaving the Earth = Radiative Forcing Amount

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Tropospheric ozone increases result from the emission of pollutant gases
and create a positive ozone forcing. Positive forcing lead to a warming of
Earth's surface. In contrast, stratospheric ozone depletion represents a
small negative forcing, which leads to cooling of Earth's surface.

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Greenhouse effect

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The greenhouse effect is the process through which heat is trapped near Earth's surface by substances known as
'greenhouse gases.

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Various greenhouse gases sources and their
relative contribution in global warming

• Water vapor (H2O)

• Carbon dioxide (CO2)
• Methane (CH4)
• Nitrous oxide (N2O)
• Ozone (O3)
• Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs and HCFCs)
• Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs)
• Perfluorocarbons

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Although there are no hard and fast rules, the general
rule is if the difference in electronegativities is less than
about 0.5, the bond is considered nonpolar covalent
bond; if the difference is 0.5 or greater, the bond is
considered polar covalent bond.

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Electrons in a polar covalent bond are shifted toward the more electronegative atom; thus, the more electronegative
atom is the one with the partial negative charge. The greater the difference in electronegativity, the more polarized
the electron distribution and the larger the partial charges of the atoms.

• For a molecule to be IR active there must be a change in

dipole moment as a result of the vibration that occurs when
IR radiation is absorbed.

• Dipole moment is a vector quantity and depends on the

orientation of the molecule and the photon electric vector.

• The dipole moment changes as the bond expands and

contracts.

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• The Earth's surface emits radiation primarily in the infrared
range (4 to 100 micrometers).

• Greenhouse gases that absorb IR radiation in this range (e.g.,

CO₂ at around 15 micrometers and CH₄ at around 7.6
micrometers).

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Bond stretching or bending which cause a dipole moment are IR
active.

CO2 have a linear structure with C in between 2 O atoms. It have four

Vibrational modes.

1. CO Symmetric stretching. i.e. both CO bonds will stretch by same

amount, thereby having no resulting dipole moment. Hence this mode
is IR Inactive.

2. CO Asymmetric Stretching: Here both CO bonds stretch by different

amount, thus causing a resultant dipole moment. Hence this mode is
IR Active.

3. OCO Bending: There are two OCO bending which are basically
degenerated states and registers at same frequency and when both
CO bonds bend, they cause a dipole moment, and is IR active.

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The most potent greenhouse gas is water vapour, which causes about 36-70% of the greenhouse effect. Carbon dioxide (9-
26%), methane (4-9%) and Ozone (3-7%) are other major greenhouse gases.

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Global warming
Global warming is the long-term warming of the planet's overall temperature.

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Assignment

Ques 1. What are the primary natural and human-caused drivers of climate change, and how do they differ in their impacts on
global temperatures?

Ques 2. How do feedback mechanisms, such as the ice-albedo feedback and water vapor feedback, contribute to the
amplification of global warming?

Ques 3. What is radiative forcing, and how do changes in greenhouse gas concentrations affect the Earth’s energy balance and
climate system?

Ques 4. How does ongoing global warming differ from previous global warming events?

Ques 5. Explain the process by which greenhouse gases (e.g., carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide) re-emit infrared radiation.

P.S.: Assignments should be submitted in handwritten format on or before 14th August 2024.

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