Climate, Studying the Climate and Future Climates

Question 1

What are paleoclimate records used for, and what are the two sources for reconstruction?

Answer 1

The reconstruction of past enviornments and climates.

Sources for reconstruction include:
1. Fossil records
2. Geological evidence from glacial moraines and riverbeds

Question 2

What are the three types of climate markers used for environmental reconstruction?

Answer 2

1. Deep sea sediment cores
2. Ice cores
3. Fauna (pollen, tree rings, and coral rings)

Question 3

Deep sea sediment cores

Answer 3

Fragments of the Earth’s crust drilled from the seafloor that provide data on temperatures and mineral composition

Question 4

Ice cores

Answer 4

Form from the annual banding of snow which traps gas bubbles, thus providing realtively definitive measurements of atmospheric gases.

Question 5

Fauna (pollen, tree rings, and coral rings)

Answer 5

Pollen: Preserved in lake sediments. Illustrates broad characteristics in local conditions

Tree rings: Indicate temperature and general compatability with climate conditions

Coral rings: Same as tree rings but underwater

Question 6

What three sources are/have been used to measture more modern atmospheric temperatures?

Answer 6

1. Thermomenters
2. Barometers
3. Station networks

Question 7

What are the three main challenges in monitoring climate?

Answer 7

1. Creating accurate and precise models/simulations
2. The interdependent components of climate systems
3. Varying projections, attributions studies, and process studies

Question 8

What is the IPCC and their significance?

Answer 8

International Panel on Climate Change

They release global climate reports and projections every several years

Question 9

What are the SSPs and their significance?

Answer 9

A range of future socioeconomic pathways for humanity that model future climate conditions such as temperature and sea level rise

Question 10

Why are climatoligists mostly concerned with environmental extremes rather than the ‘average’?

Answer 10

Even small increases in the mean and variance of aspects of climate like temperature can cause large effects on extremes

Question 11

How does an increase in the mean and variance of climate change extremes?

Answer 11

Greater possibility of occurence for both cold and hot weather conditions which has significant health and social consequences

Question 12

What are the four ways that global warming can be slowed?

Answer 12

1. Global agreements
2. Education
3. Behavioural changes in energy consumption and resource use/sources
4. Carbon offsetting through increased vegetation

Question 13

What are the four main co-benefits of urban trees?

Answer 13

1. Carbon sequestration
2. Mitigates urban heat islands
3. Reduced pollutant concentrations
4. Promotes exercise

Question 14

What are unintended consequences in the context of mitigation?

Answer 14

Although climate action is almost universally perceived as beneficial for the global environment, there are other social and economic consequences