Anthropocene finally (my ass is tired from making these decks guys) Flashcards
How do geologists divide their geological timelines?
according to global-scale changes to the state of the planet
What kind of global-scale changes have marked geological epochs?
Wholesale changes in the atmosphere or oceans
continental drift
shifts in the planetary climate regime
meteor or asteroid bombardement
sustained volcanic eruptions
Geological timelines can mark changes when either or both ____ and ____ are detectable
Causes and consequences
Why do we justify the existence of the Anthropocene?
Because human activity is global and its impacts should be observable in the geological record for millions of years to come?
What is a meromitic lake?
Water layers do no intermix fully
What Canadian lakes are meromitic?
Lake Crawford and pink lake
Why are meromitic lakes advantageous for geologists?
Because they can steadily accumulate sediments (or biological matters if the lake is anoxic) at the bottom layers,
Which Canadian lake was nominated for a golden spike (GSSP marker) for the proposed Anthropocene?
Lake Crawford
Geologists require ___ and ___ evidence to assign a start to a new epoch
tangible, datable
What kind of tangible evidence for geological changes is there?
-Absence or presence of fossils
-Chemical elements in suitable sediments, deep ice
Doubt can be used to justify ____ or ____
Action or inaction
When was the inventor if the steam engine, Thomas Newcomen, born?
1663
What did Newcomen’s steam engine burn? What did it produce?
prodigious quantities of coal or wood– made lots of CO2
Leibniz’s charts included which elements?
Fire, air, water, earth
Ignorance of co2 emissions allowed what?
increase in consumption
Which chemist first isolated a “gas Sylvestre”? (Co2) when?
Jan van Helmont in 1630
Which chemist isolated co2 in pure form in 1754-1756 (he called it fixed air)
Joseph Black
Which chemists determined that air is a combination of carbon and oxygen? (1775-1787)
French chemists Antoine Guyton de Moreau and Antoine Lavoisier
Which chemist correctly guessed co2’s precise composition? (1803)
British chemist John Dalton
Which Chemist published his findings that CO2 in the air fosters the trapping of the sun’s heat? (1861)
British Chemist John Tyndall
What factors contaminated early readings of co2 until mid 20th century?
Measurements done in cities at ground level, contaminated by pollution and vegetation releasing co2 nearby
From what areas did co2 measures become more consistent?
Antarctic ice cores and Mauna Loa in Hawaii
Which scientists calculated that changes in CO2 concentration might bring about an ice age or global warning, and estimated that doubling atmospheric co2 might take 3,000 years (1894-1896)
Arvid Högboen and Svante Arrhenius
For the first half of the 20th century, what contributed to the belief that climate change was overestimated?
Heat trapping in the atmosphere could reach a maximum and excess head would be absorbed by the oceans
Which scientist published several papers linking the burning of fossil fuels to co2 emissions and global warming? (1938-1949)
Guy Stewart Callendar
Which scientist used a digital computer to show that heat absorption by CO2 does not saturate as much at higher altitudes? (1952)
Lewis D. Kaplin
Which scientists proved that oceans absorb 10 times less co2 than expected (only about 25-30% of human emissions)? (1957)
Hans Suess and Roger Revelle
Which Scientist announced in 1960 that his sampling of atmospheric co2 in Antarctica revealed a continual increase since 1957, then continued from Hawaii?
Charles David Keeling
How do the Antarctica and Hawaii CO2 readings compare?
Almost exactly align