Climate Change Flashcards
What is weather?
Refers to the state of the atmosphere at a particular place and time
What is climate?
Long-term patterns of weather conditions in a particular area, typically observed over a period of 30 years or more.
How is climate classified of a particular area?
Scientist classify climate of a particular area by studying two main features. Temperature and precipitation
What is Earth´s Energy Budget?
EEB refers to the balance between the energy Earth receives from the sun - to the energy Earth radiates back into space.
What does Earth’s Energy Budget do?
It keeps Earth’s climate relatively stable
What is Solar Radiatrion?
Electromagnetic radiation emitted by the sun
How is Solar Radiation measured?
All different types of radiation are measured on a spectrum.
What are the layers of the atmosphere?
Troposphere
Stratosphere
Mesosphere
Thermosphere
What are the three types of Solar Radiation?
UV radiation, Infrared Radiation and Visible light.
- The different types of solar radiation will interact differently with the atmosphere.
What characteristics does UV Radiation have?
- Its invisible
- Causes sunburns, skin cancers, and eye damage.
- Is absorbed by the mesosphere
-is my mortal enemy!
What characteristics does Infrared Radiation have?
- We feel it as heat
- It is absorbed by both the troposphere and Earth’s surface
What characteristics does Visible Light have?
- It has colors that can be seen by the human eye
- Is absorbed and reflected by Earth’s surface
- Reflected light becomes infrared
What is the Albedo effect?
- Refers to the amount of light a surface reflect
- Lighter surfaces have a higher albedo ( Can reflect more light)
- Darker surfaces have a lower albedo ( absorbs more light instead)
How does the albedo effect influence Earth’s climate?
It influences Earth’s climate because it determines the reflection/absorption of light from the sun.
What Greenhouse gasses are in the atmosphere?
Carbon dioxide, methane, water vapour, nitrous oxide, ozone and fluorinated gases.
What is Greenhouse gas?
The gases in the atmosphere that raise the surface temperature of Earth.
What do Greenhouse gasses do with solar radiation?
Greenhouse gases absorb infrared radiation.
What maintains Earth’s temperature?
The absorption of solar radiation in the troposphere is what maintains Earth’s surface temperature (IMPORTANT)
What happens when there’s more greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere?
The more greenhouse gasses = the more trapped heat = resulting in an increase of temperature.
What is the solar cycle?
The solar cycle is a 11 year process the sun takes in which the sun produces different amounts of energy that can increase and decrease Earth’s temperature slightly.
What happens in a solar cycle?
The amount of energy the sun produces follows a pattern. The sun can produce high amounts of energy or low amounts of energy.
What is uneven heating from the sun?
Solar radiation that hits near Earth’s South Pole and on the Equator has the same amount of warming.
Why does light spread over a larger surface in the Polar region? and a lower surface area in the Equator region?
Light in the Polar region is spread over a much larger area because of the curvature of the Earth’s surface.
In the Equator region, light is spread over a much smaller surface due to less curvature.
