Climate And Sea Level Change

Question 1

What is the Quaternary period?

Answer 1

The period where humans evolved.

Question 2

Why do we have a lot of evidence about what’s happened in the quaternary period?

Answer 2

Because it’s recent so less information is lost.

Question 3

How do we find out what’s happened in the past?

Answer 3

We use palaeoecological material to see the past

Question 4

How many cycles are in between glacial and interglacial periods?

Answer 4

103

Question 5

How do we know if a certain era was interglacial or glacial?

Answer 5

Oxygen isotopes

Question 6

What journal links to oxygen isotopes and orbital forcing?

Answer 6

Haysetal Science 1976

Question 7

What proxies do we measure in ice cores?

Answer 7

Oxygen isotopes-temp
Deuterium excess-humid activity
Conductivity (SO4)- volcanic activity
CO2, CH4, N2O- Atmosphere
Dust- moisture

Question 8

What causes glacial and interglacial changes?

Answer 8

Orbital forcing

Question 9

What do ice sheets respond to?

Answer 9

Summer isolation via temp

Question 10

What does orbital forcing do?

Answer 10

It changes the temp

Question 11

What are the 3 types of sea level change?

Answer 11

Isostatic
Eustatic
Steric

Question 12

What are the two types of isostatic sea level change?

Answer 12

Hydro-isostacy (refers to the earth’s response to changes in surface ice and water loading during glacial cycles)
Glacial-isostacy (the process of depression beneath the weight of an ice sheet from the crust and upper mantle and subsequent rebound when the ice mass is reduced or removed)

Question 13

Which type of sea level change measures a change in volume?

Answer 13

Eustatic

Question 14

What does steric sea level change measure?

Answer 14

Salinity and the density of water as well as temperature

Question 15

How can Eustatic sea level change come about?

Answer 15

Melting ice
Freshwater flooding

This has a massive impact!

Question 16

What are the 5 natural causes of climate and sea level change?

Answer 16

Vegetation
Atmosphere
Ice
Land surface
Ocean

Question 17

What are the 5 human impacts of climate and sea level change?

Answer 17

Increased sea level
Increased rear line air temp
Increased surface temp
Increased surface air temp 
Decrease in summer arctic sea-ice extent

Question 18

What do we do when we record ice cores?

Answer 18

We record annual layers of ice and trapped bubbles. The centre of the ice sheet is the best because there’s less deformation of the annual layers.

Question 19

What was the green Sahara?

Answer 19

An example of how climate has changed dramatically. The Sahara used to house animals like elephants so it wasn’t just a desert. These changes are due to the monsoon.

Question 20

How does a monsoon come about?

Answer 20

It is driven by the temperature difference between the land and sea.