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General Ecology > Climate Change > Flashcards

Climate Change Flashcards

1
Q

How is species performance affected by temperature?

A

rates vary at different temperatures
- temp performance curves show minimun, optimum, and maximum

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2
Q

What may the increase in performance from Tmin to Topt be tied to?

A

closely to the effects of temperature increase on the basic enzymatic processes that affect metabolism

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3
Q

Is climate change new?

A

no, 20,000 years ago there were massive ice sheets

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4
Q

What is weather?

A

short-term changes, variation across days or weeks or months

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5
Q

What is climate?

A

long-term changes (variation across years or decades)

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6
Q

What is anonmolies?

A

variations above or below long-term averages

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7
Q

What is signal-to-noise ratio?

A

short term variation (noise) can swamp detection of long-term trends (signal)

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8
Q

How can signal-to-noise be improved?

A

if noise can be reduces

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9
Q

What happens if noise cannot be reduced?

A

the data from longer time spans may be necessary to detect the signal

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10
Q

How can noise be reduced?

A

by averaging observations from multiple locations or by plotting anomalies rather than raw data

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11
Q

Climate seems to be warming at all ______

A

global geological components

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12
Q

What are the global geological components?

A

atmosphere, biosphere, cryosphere (ice/snow), hydrosphere, and lithosphere

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13
Q

What is dendrochronology?

A

tree growth ring analysis

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14
Q

What can tree growth ring analysis be?

A

a proxy for instrumental recordings, since annual growth rate is correlated with temperature and precipitation

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15
Q

What is ice deposition pattern?

A

H and O isotope ratios in ice cores

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16
Q

Why are proxy methods used?

A

to estimate climatic patterns for periods prior to the instrumental record

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17
Q

When has most temperature rise occurs?

A

in last century

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18
Q

WHat is cryosphere?

A

increased temperature has led to decreased snow, ice, etc over last 40 years in particular

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19
Q

What is hydrosphere?

A

increased temperature has increased evaporation, water vapor, and precipitation
- may cause droughts in some areas and excess rain in others
- rising sea levels

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20
Q

What is biosphere?

A

average growing season has increased throughout much of US
- some areas in southeast US have reduced frost-free days due to unpredicable late spring and early fall freezes

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21
Q

What is hindcast?

A

determine how well models fit past

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22
Q

What is the black body model?

A

absorbs all radiation energy, then reemits energy in all directions once it has reached a thermal equilibrium
- if earth were a perfect black body, it would be 6C

23
Q

What is albedo?

A

ability of a body to reflect light

24
Q

What is the greenhouse effect?

A

atmospheric gases, including water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane etc. act to trap and re-radiate heat

25
Q

What is short wave energy?

A

(from sun) passes to earth

26
Q

What is longwave energy?

A

(ex heat) is retained

27
Q

What do global climate models incorportate?

A

earth’s tilt and rotation, air currents, ocean current, stc

28
Q

What are external forcings (global climate models)?

A

factors expected to change

29
Q

How are global climate models ran?

A

first without forcings to determine how well fit historical data and then run with forcings to predict possible future change

30
Q

What is Compiled Model Intercomparison Project?

A

more than 60 models combiend to yield a mean average model, which tracks historical observations very well

31
Q

What is natural climate forcings?

A

volcanic emissions, variation in solar radiation, change’s in earth’s orbit

32
Q

What is anthropogenic climate forcings?

A

fossil fuel greenhouse emissions, ozone damage

33
Q

What is a climatological fingerprint?

A

changes produced by any one forcing produce a unique pattern of responses

34
Q

What is Milankovitch cycles?

A

variation in earth’s orbit makes earth move closer or farther from the sun, associated with ice ages and inervening interglacial periods

35
Q

Can natural forces explain recent changes?

A

no, all models suggest that natural forcings predict a much lower current temperature and volcanic emissions cause brief cooling periods

36
Q

Can anthropogenic forcings explain recent changes?

A

yes, together all anthropogenic sources reproduce historical temperature change nearly perfectly

37
Q

What effect does land use changes have?

A

negative effect via increased albido

38
Q

What effect do aerosol emissions have?

A

positive effect via retained heat

39
Q

What effect do stratospheric ozone depletion have?

A

slight net negative effect

40
Q

What effect do troposheric ozone increase have?

A

positive

41
Q

What effect do greenhouse gas emissions have?

A

positive via retained heat

42
Q

What is the future increase in temp mostly dependent upon?

A

future greenhouse gas emissions

43
Q

What are representative concentration pathways?

A

different projected greenhouse gas emission scenarios

44
Q

How are representative concentration pathways expected to change?

A

change more than temperature and precipitation along with extreme weather events

45
Q

When could potential “tipping” points occur?

A

if negative feedbacks fail to check runaway temperature increases

46
Q

What pheological changes have occured?

A

changes in when activities can or do take place
- showing earlier emergence times
- trophic mismatches, migrations starting before plant growth begins

47
Q

What is an example of a direct effect of climate change?

A

heat-related deaths

48
Q

What is an example of an indirect effect of climare change?

A

crop failure leading to famine

49
Q

What ecosystem changes are occuring due to climate change?

A
  • higher NPP in oceans (CO2 fertilization rate)
  • ocean acififiction (added CO2 yielding higher carbonic acid)
50
Q

How can species respond to climate change?

A
  • decline or go extinct
  • acclimate physically and/or behaviorally
  • shift ranges
  • evolve
51
Q

What species are better able to evolve?

A

temperate species as compared to tropical

52
Q

What species have more of an ability to follow pattern of climate change?

A

mountain dwelling as compared to flatland dwelling

53
Q

When will evolution occur?

A

only in a species if genetic variation is high enough, generation time is fast enough, and rate of climate change is slow enough

General Ecology (24 decks)

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