Climate Change The Physical Science Basis

Question 1

What is the green house effect ?

Answer 1

This is when infrared radiation from the earth’s surface is absorbed by the atmosphere and remitted by GHG molecules and clouds in different direction keeping the earth and lower atmospher warm

Question 2

True or false: solar radiation powers the climate systems .

Answer 2

True

Question 3

What happens to solar radiation after it is emitted?

Answer 3

Half of it is absorbed by the earth and warms it , part of it reflected by the earth and atmosphere

Question 4

What is the enhanced greenhouse effect ?

Answer 4

This is is an increase in the amount of energy trapped in the atmosphere caused by the increased concentration of GHG cause by human activities.

Question 5

What are some of the increased GHG?

Answer 5

Co2, NH4, N2O,tropospheric ozone (O3) and halocarbons ( CFCS,HFCS,halons , HCFCS)

Question 6

True or false : there is a tremendous increase in CO2 CH4, N2O than they have ever been .

Answer 6

True .

Question 7

What is meant by global warming potential ?

Answer 7

This is a number used to quantify how much heat a GHG can trap in the atmosphere over a specific time period .eg. CH4 has a GWP of 25 over a hundred year period which means it is 25 times more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere as compared to CO2 which has GWP of 1

Question 8

Arrange the following according to their life spans : O3, CO2, CH4
N2O

Answer 8

CO2 has the longest life span
The N2O is next
Then CH4
O3 has a very short life span [ with the highest global warming potential of these )

Question 9

What is radiative forcing ?

Answer 9

This is the quantitative measure of the imbalance between incoming solar radiation and out going reflected solar and infrared radiation

Question 10

Positive and negative radiative forcing, what are they ?

Answer 10

Positive radiative forcing means that there is an increase in radiation trapped in the atmospher ( green house gas effect ) leading to global warming . While negative radiative force is the opposite and equates to global cooling

Question 11

Tru or false : the first IPCC report was written in 1990.

Answer 11

True

Question 12

What is climate sensitivity?

Answer 12

This refers to how sensitive the earths climate system is to chnaages in radiative forcing .

Question 13

Climate sensitivity= global temperature change under 2*CO2(doubling of preindustrial CO2)

Answer 13

In simple terms climate sensitivity determines / answers this question : if we were to double the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere as compared to pre-industrial levels how much warmer would the earth get .

Question 14

Why is climate sensitivity important ?

Answer 14

It projects future climates ( usually used in climate models )
Understanding impacts of climate change ( eg sea level rise etc.
Informs policy makers about the urgency of the actions needed to mitigate these.

Question 15

What is meant by transient climate response (TCR)

Answer 15

This is an estimate / measure of how much the earth’s temperature is going to rise at the time of Co2 doubling assuming levels increase 1% every year.which reflects the warming effects that GHG have before the earth reaches a new equilibrium

Question 16

True or false : ocean heat is rising .

Answer 16

True

Question 17

True or false : human influence has warmed the climate at unprecedented rates than seen in the last 2000 years.

Answer 17

True

Question 18

True or fals : every tone of CO2 counts to global warming

Question 19

True or false : we have 9 years til the temperature gets to 1.5c and about 16 years till it gets to 1.7 C

Answer 19

True