Comments for Constructed Climates

Comment on A.5 Quantities Covary by Will Wilson

Will Wilson — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 14:30:38 +0000

The per capita energy use should read 10^8 Btus/person, not 10^7.

Comment on 3.13 Carbon Footprint by Eco Global Markets

Eco Global Markets — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:10:03 +0000

The best chance of making the UK a low-carbon economy comes through community-owned green energy projects. According to a collection of civil groups that represent 12 million people, government support to create a low carbon economy should be greater. Local people need a stake in energy generation and to be given the chance to produce low-carbon, low-cost energy.

Comment on 4. 2 Fossil Fuel Pollution by Will Wilson

Will Wilson — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 14:03:56 +0000

The sentence, “Note also the change in the U.S. economy, seen in Figure 3.4, from 40% goods-producing industries in 1950 to 20% in 2000.” refers to a plot that had been in the penultimate draft of the book. The statement is correct, but is NOT shown in Figure 3.4. The plot is shown, however, in the course handout for Chapter 4.

Comment on 2. 6 City Lightning by Will Wilson

Will Wilson — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 17:58:48 +0000

During the period of the Stallins and Bentley (2006) study, there were 8.2 million cloud-to-ground lightning strikes across all of Georgia. In the 80km radius area centered on Atlanta there were 939,096 strikes.

Comment on 3.10 Carbon Storage by admin

admin — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 14:58:35 +0000

The sequestration rates for the golf courses should show units of kgC/m2, though it is implied in the context of the sentence.

Comment on 3. 1 U.S. Energy by admin

admin — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 14:39:35 +0000

I just found an EIA estimate for undiscovered World Petroleum Reserves of about 3 trillion barrels. Still not that much more than the 1.3 trillion I mention above. Also, the most recent estimates for daily liquid fuels consumption is about 87 million barrels.

Comment on 1.10 Harmed Aquatic Life by admin

admin — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 23:41:27 +0000

While reading the Riley et al. (2005) paper in class, a student noted that the “sensitive species in streams” axis was “square root transformed”. That means, for example, that what reads as “4%” really means “16%”, and what reads as “6%” really means “36%”. Thus, the species loss in urbanized streams is even more dramatic than depicted here.

Will Wilson

Comment on 1. 7 Lost Farms by Will Wilson

Will Wilson — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 14:13:03 +0000

Here I state that 3% of land is urban. The 2011 Statistical Abstract of the US lists that in 2003 5.6% of US land (excluding Alaska) was “developed.” The glossary defines developed as “Large urban and built-up areas, Small built-up areas, and Rural transportation land”.

Comment on 4. 7 VOCs & Ozone by Will Wilson

Will Wilson — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 17:58:05 +0000

Here’s an erratum.

Above I wrote: “Oxygen, O2, gets split by high energy photons, light with a short wavelength less than 240 nm, into two oxygen atoms, each one can then react with another O2 molecule to form ozone, O3.”

While correct for the stratosphere, it’s not an important source of O atoms for ozone formation in the troposphere because the atmosphere blocks the relevant portion of the solar spectrum (wavelengths less than 240 nm). The light certainly isn’t present in the diagram shown here for tropospheric ozone formation, so I somehow messed up this text.

The least disruptive edit replaces that sentence with: “Oxygen, O2, reacts with an oxygen atom to form ozone, O3.”

Trying to figure this mistake out, I found I’ve lost a citation I made in an early draft. I based part of the reactions in my sketch on a line diagram which I earlier attributed (correctly or not) to the following reference,
Spiro, T.G., and Stigliani, W.M. (2003) Chemistry of the Environment. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Comment on 3.15 Trees, Cooling, & Heating by Will Wilson

Will Wilson — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 13:08:47 +0000

A little more explanation of this table: Take the first line of Air Conditioning, “1-4 Family”. Without trees, the energy use is 556 GWh. With trees, this number is reduced by 13.3% through “Direct Shade”. The three effects, Direct Shade+Air Temp+Wind Speed, add up to a total change of 21.3%. Reducing 556 GWh by 21.3% gives 438GWh.