Changing Climates

Question 1

What is an Ice Age?

Answer 1

Any period of time when Earth has permanent ice sheets

Question 2

What are Glacial Periods?

Answer 2

The colder periods that normally last about 100,000 years

Question 3

What are Interglacial Periods?

Answer 3

The warmer periods that normally last about 10,000 years

Question 4

What period is the Earth currently in?

Answer 4

Interglacial Period

Question 5

What is the most prominent greenhouse gas?

Answer 5

Water vapour

Question 6

What is Global Warming Potential?

Answer 6

The different effect that different gases have on global warming as they trap and absorb different amounts of radiation

Question 7

What is a Quaternary Period?

Answer 7

The most recent geological period (over the last 2.6m years) where there were several cold and warm periods

Question 8

What is Eccentricity?
(Milankovitch Cycles)

Answer 8

The stretch of the Earth’s orbits, (on a cycle of 100,000 years)

Question 9

What is Precession?
(Milankovitch Cycles)

Answer 9

How the Earth’s axis of rotation changes, (on a cycle of 26,000 years)

Question 10

What is Obliquity?
(Milankovitch Cycles)

Answer 10

The tilt of the Earth, (on a cycle of 41,000 years)

Question 11

What are Sunspots?

Answer 11

Storms on the Sun’s surface that make it so that our output from the Sun is not constant

Question 12

What does Anthropogenic mean?

Answer 12

Caused by human activity

Question 13

How much has Human activity impacted climate change?

Answer 13

Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution (1750), human activity has caused a 40% increase in atm pressure of CO2