3. Climate Change

Question 1

What is the Anthropocene epoch?

Answer 1

A new unit of Earth’s history, in which humans have become such a dominant force that they have changed the very characteristics of our planet.

Question 2

What is the order of geological time from largest to smallest

Answer 2

Eon - Era - Period - Epoch

Question 3

What is a golden spike?

Answer 3

The name geologists give to an event that has a major simultaneous global change justifing a change in our geological unit of time

Question 4

What are the four major greenhouse gases and their percentages?

Answer 4

Carbon dioxide 75%, Fluoro gases 2%, methane 17%, nitrous oxide 6%

Question 5

What are the activities that humans do to emit emissions?

Answer 5

Energy industry, agriculture and deforestation, energy in transport, energy in buildings, landfill, cement manufacture, others

Question 6

What is the trend of carbon dioxide?

Answer 6

Increases

Question 7

What is the carbon dioxide levels in 1700 + 2020 & what is the trend?

Answer 7

1700 - 280 parts per million
2020 - 420 parts per million

Levels increased

Question 8

Why does carbon emissions vary around the world?

Answer 8

Levels of development (buildings + transport)

Question 9

What are the 2 epochs that scientists believe we are in?

Answer 9

Holocene + Anthropocene

Question 10

What is a positive correlation?

Answer 10

As one variable increases so does the other (e.g. if temperature increases does the number of ice cream a shop sells)

Question 11

What is no correlation?

Answer 11

Change in one variable has no apparent influence on what the other one does (e.g. the number of toothbrushes that a shop sells is unaffected by changes in temperature)

Question 12

What is a negative correlation?

Answer 12

As one variable increases, the other decreases (e.g. as temperature increases, the number of woolly hats that a shop sells decreases)

Question 13

How can you tell what type positive correlation a graph is?

Answer 13

Correlation strength describes how close the relationship is - you can judge it by looking at how tightly the points are clustered around the line of best fit

Question 14

How does one declare a new unit of geological time?

Answer 14

There must we evidence of long-term changes to the Earth as a global system

There must be a ‘marker’ of this event that can be identified and dated from digging down into the rocks, ocean floor, sediment or glacial ice

Question 15

What are the strengths of the four major greenhouse gases?

Answer 15

Carbon dioxide: 1, Fluro-gases: 10 000, Methane: 30, Nitrous Oxide: 600

Question 16

What are the human activities that result in the emission of the four major greenhouse gases?

Answer 16

Carbon dioxide: Burning fossil fuels + deforestation, Fluro-gases: Manmade gases, Methane: Agriculture + permafrost, Nitrous Oxide: Agriculture + burning fossil fuels

Question 17

The top five countries responsible for the emissions of greenhouse gases, largest to smallest

Answer 17

China, America, India, Russia & Japan

Question 18

What is a carbon footprint?

Answer 18

The best estimate we can get of the full climate change impact of something

Question 19

How do you reduce carbon emissions?

Answer 19

Being more sustainable

-Eating less red meat
-Eat local food
-Travel in eco-friendly ways

Question 20

What is a positive feedback loops?

Answer 20

Example: as permafrost melts it releases methane which makes more permafrost melt causing a positive feedback loop

Question 21

Describe the greenhouse effect

Answer 21

-Earth’s surface heats up and emits longwave radiation
-shortwave radiation from sun passes through the
Earth’s atmosphere
-some shortwave radiation is absorbed by greenhouse gases in atmosphere stopping Earth from getting too cold
-some shortwave radiation escapes into space, helping earth to cool down

Question 22

Describe the enhanced greenhouse effect

Answer 22

-Human activity e.g. burning fossil fuels increases concentration of greenhouse gases
-Earth’s surface heats up and emits longwave radiation
- More outgoing longwave radiation absorbed and trapped in atmosphere, preventing Earth from cooling
-shortwave radiation passes through Earth’s atmosphere
-Less longwave radiation escapes into space
-more energy enters than leaves Earth’s atmosphere, so planet heats up