4.4 Climate change Flashcards

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1
Q

What are the 2 most significant (largest effect on the Earth) greenhouse gases?

A

Carbon dioxide and water vapour

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2
Q

What are the 2 most significant greenhouse gases?

A

Carbon dioxide and water vapour

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3
Q

What does gases do in the atmosphere?

A

They retain heat

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4
Q

How is carbon dioxide released in the atmosphere and how is it removed from the atmosphere?

A
  • Released by cell respiration in living organisms and also by combustion of biomass and fossil fuels
  • Removed by photosynthesis and by dissolving in the oceans
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5
Q

How is water vapour formed and how is it removed?

A
  • Formed by evaporation from the oceans and also transpiration in plants
  • Removed from the atmosphere by rainfall and snow
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6
Q

In what form does water continue to retain heat after it condenses?

A

After it condenses to form droplets of liquid water in clouds

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7
Q

Why does temperature drop so much more quickly at night in areas with clear skies than in areas with cloud cover?

A
  • Water continues to retain heat after it condenses to form droplets of liquid water in clouds
  • The water absorbs heat energy and radiates it back to the Earth’s surface and also reflects the heat energy back
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8
Q

What are the 2 greenhouse gases that have less impact than CO2 and water vapour?

A

Methane and nitrogen oxides

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9
Q

What are the two most significant greenhouse gases?

A

CO2 and water vapour

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10
Q

How is methane and nitrogen oxides compared to CO2 and water vapour?

A

CO2 and water vapour - most abundant
Methane and nitrogen oxides - have smaller but nontheless significant effect

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11
Q

What is methane emitted from?

A
  • the 3rd most significant greenhouse gas
  • emitted from marshes and other waterlogged habitats and from landfill sites where organic wastes have been dumped
  • release during extraction of fossil fuels and from melting ice in polar regions
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12
Q

Where is nitrous oxide released from?

A
  • released naturally by bacteria in some habitats and also by agriculture and vehicle exhausts
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13
Q

Why is oxygen and nitrogen, the two most abundant gases in the Earth’s atmosphere not greenhouse gases?

A

They do not absorb longer-wave radiation

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14
Q

How much does all the greenhouse gases together make up in the atmosphere?

A

Less than 1%

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15
Q

What does the impact of a gas depend on?

A

Its ability to absorb long-wave radiation as well as on its concentration in the atmosphere

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16
Q

Why is methane’s impact on global warming less than CO2?

A

Because it has a lower concentration than CO2

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17
Q

What does the concentration of a gas depend on?

A
  • Rate at which it is released into the atmosphere
  • How long on average it remains in the atmosphere
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18
Q

How quickly does water vapour enter the atmosphere and how long on average does it remain there?

A

It enters the atmosphere immensely rapid, but it remains there only 9 days on average, whereas methan remains in the atmosphere for 12 years and carbon dioxide even longer

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19
Q

What length wave does the Earth absorb?

A

The warmed surface of the Earth absorbs short-wave energy from the sun

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20
Q

What does the Earth do after absorbing short-wave energy from the sun?

A

It re-emits it at much longer wave-lengths

21
Q

What does the Earth do after absorbing short-wave energy from the sun?

A

It re-emits it at much longer wave-lengths

22
Q

What is the longer-wave radiation reabsorbed by?

A

Greenhouse gases

23
Q

What is the longer-wave radiation reabsorbed by?

A

Greenhouse gases

24
Q

What is the effect of longer-wave radiation being reabsorbed by greenhouse gases?

A

It retains the heat in the atmosphere

25
Q

How does the greenhouse effect work?

A
  1. Approx 25% of solar radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere
  2. Approx 75% of solar radiation penetrates the atmosphere and eaches the Earth’s surface
  3. The surface of the Earth absorbs short-wave solar energy and re0emits at longer wavelengths (as heat)
  4. Up to 85% of re-emitted heat is captured by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere
  5. Heat passes back to the surface of the Earth, causing warming
26
Q

What do water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide have in common?

A
  • They all abosrb some of these wavelengths so each of them is a greenhouse gas
27
Q

What can we expect if the concentration of any of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere chnages?

A
  • Size of its contribution to the greenhouse effect to change
  • Global temperatures to rise or fall
28
Q

How can we deduce carbon dioxide concentrations from the past?

A
  • Using columns of ice
  • Ice has built up over thousands of years, so ice from deper down is older than the ice near the surface
  • Bubbles of air trapped in the ice can be extracted and analysed to find the CO2 concetntration
29
Q

How do we deduce the global temperatures from the past?

A
  • Using columns of ice
  • Ice has built up over thousands of years, so ice from deper down is older than the ice near the surface
  • Global temperatures can be deduced from ratios of hydrogen isotopes in the water molecules
30
Q

What are global temperatures and lcimate patterns influenced by?

A

Concentration of greenhouse gases

31
Q

What other factors have an influence on global average temperatures thats not greenhouse gases?

A
  • Milankovitch cycles in the Earth’s orbit
  • Variation in sunspot activity
32
Q

What is the influence of higher air temperature on climate?

A
  • Higher temperaturesi ncrease the evaporation of water from the oceans
  • Periods of rain are likely to be more frequent and protracted
  • The amount of rain delivered during thunderstorms and other intense burst is likely to increase very significantly
33
Q

What is the influence of higher ocean temperature on climate?

A
  • Higher ocean temperatures cause topical storms and hurricanes to be more frequent and more powerful, with faster wind speeds
34
Q

Since when did atmpospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide begin to increase along with average global temperatures?

A

Since the start of the industrial revolution

35
Q

What caused consequent increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration in the second half of the 20th century?

A

When more countries became industrialized and combustion of coal, oil and natural gas increased ever more rapidly

36
Q

What are recent incrases in atmospheric carbon dioxide largely due to?

A

Combustion of fossilized organic matter

37
Q

What caused carbon dioxide emissions in the industrial revolution?

A

Mining and burning increasing quantities of coal

38
Q

In addition to combustion of coal, what became increasingly widespsread?

A

Combustion of oil and natural gas

39
Q

Why would some companies pay for reports to be written that minimizes the risks of climate change?

A

Because companies make huge profits from coal, oil and natural gas and it is in their interests for fossil fuel combustion to continue to grow

40
Q

What happens to the ocean when carbon dioxide concentrations of the atmosphere continues to rise?

A

Ocean acidification

41
Q

What do marine animals that deopsit calcium carbonate in their skeletons need?

A

Need to absorb carbonate ions from seawater

42
Q

What do marine animals that deopsit calcium carbonate in their skeletons need?

A

Need to absorb carbonate ions from seawater

43
Q

Why is the concentration of carbonate ions in seawater low?

A

Because they are not very soluble

44
Q

What do dissolved carbon dioxide do to carbonate concentration in the ocean?

A

It makes the carbonate concentration even lower as a result of some interrelated chemical reactions

45
Q

How does dissolved carbon dioxide make carbonate concentrations even lower?

A
  1. CO2 reacts with water to form carbonic acid
  2. Which dissociates into hydrogen and hydrogen carbonate ions
  3. Hydrogen ions react with dissolved carbonate ions, reducing their concentration
46
Q

What happens when carbonate ion concentrations drop?

A

More difficult for reef-building corals to absorb them to make their skeletons

47
Q

What happens if seawater ceases to be a saturated solution of carbonate ions?

A

Exisiting calcium carbonate tends to dissolve, so exisitng skeletons of reef-building corals are threatened

48
Q

What would you expect in an area of acidified water?

A

No corals, no sea urchines or other animals thst make their skeletons from calcium carbonate

In their place other organisms flourish such as sea grasses and invsasive algae