Climate Change Flashcards
Climate change definition?
Climate is the average of weather over time and space, over 30 years. It describes the long-term pattern of weather in a particular area over the whole globe.
weather is whort term changes in the atmosphere.
TF: Sea level rise
What are the two key causes of sea level rise that are linked to global warming?
- Thermal expansion of the ocean
2. Melting ice caps and sheets
TF: What time dynamics differ for the warming of surface and deep ocean.
The density of water decreases with increasing temperature. So as the temperature of sea water increases, it exapnds and we have a sea level rise. The majority of sea water is in the deep ocean and the dynamics of thermal expansion follows appoximately to the temperature increase in the deep ocean therefore and not in the surface. As the mixing of these two layers takes many years, the expansion is a slow process and the warming of the deep sea equilibrium is a more long term one than the surface ocean.
TF: Define climate change feedback and explain the difference between a negative feedback and a positive feedback.
A feedback is a loop of causes and effects that reinforce or dampens processes that change a state, eg the earth global temperature.
A positive feedback makes the temperature change larger than it would have been without the feedback, and a negative feedback counteracts some of the external forcing, stabilizing the state.
