Conceptualizing Climate Change in the Past and Present Flashcards
Section I of USAD Social Science Resource Guide terms and definitions
Earth System Science (ESS)
A relatively new approach that looks at the interactions between and views the Earth’s land, oceans, and atmosphere as a single system
Anthropocene
A new geological epoch in planetary history in which humans have become the driving force in planetary change
What are the four subsystems?
Geosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere
Forcings
The specific causes of climate change that alter the balance of subsystems, often causing feedbacks to occur
Geosphere (Lithosphere)
It encompasses all land, earth, and rock that make up our planet
Earth’s crust
Where most of the interactions between the geosphere and other subsystems occur
Hydrosphere
All the water on the Earth, in the ground, and in the atmosphere (including clouds)
Cryosphere
Ice, which is included in the hydrosphere, though some scholars identify as its own subsystem
Atmosphere
The troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere, and exosphere
Greenhouse gas effect
When the concentration of certain gases released from the Earth’s other subsystems trap heat in the lower layers of the atmosphere
Biosphere
All living things on, in, and around the Earth
Milankovitch cycles
These steer the Earth into and out of periodic ice ages by influencing which parts of the Earth receive more, or less, solar energy
At which 3 intervals do Milankovitch cycles occur?
26,000 years, 41,000 years, and 100,000 years
Feedbacks
Reactions to climate change caused by forcings
Positive feedback
The original forcing and the feedback both push the climate in the same direction, either both warmer or both colder
Negative Feedback
Moderates climate change because the feedback pushes the climate back to its starting point in response to a forcing
Tipping point
A “point of no return”
Archives of society
A physical repository of written documents
Archives of nature
What is observable in nature that gives an indication of past climate conditions
Proxy
A natural feature that shows evidence of being impacted by climate conditions
What are 3 of the most revealing sources of climate history in the archives of nature?
Ices, trees, and soil
Ice core sampling
A technique of drilling long cylinders of ice out of deep glaciers
How are ice cores dated?
Snowfall from each year becomes the new top layer, trapping particles from atmosphere and freezing them in ice
Dendrochronology
The practice of determining whether a year was dry or rainy and the conditions of individual seasons from trees
Dendrochronology is a combination of which word meanings?
Trees and time
What do layers of sediment at the bottom of bodies of water reveal?
The historical composition and content of water
Cooler temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere in the late 1600s and early 1700s correspond to …?
A period of fewer sunspots and low solar activity
When was the thermometer invented?
1700
In which area are the archives of society more specific than the archives of nature?
Dating
Which city received attention in the news for record-breaking heat in the summer of 2023?
Phoenix, Arizona
How far do temperature records for the city of Phoenix date back to?
1896
What does a scholarly field consist of?
A group of scholars who share common practices for studying the type of evidence they analyze
What is a scholar usually defined as?
Primarily a member of one field
Climatology
A study of climate that relies primarily on the archives of nature
“Paleo-“
Ancient or old
Which period do historical climatology and paleoclimatology investigate?
Before the 1800s
Climate history
A study of climate that relies primarily on the archives of society
Christian Pfister
Swiss historian who pioneered the field of climate history
History of climate and society (HCS)
A study that focuses on the relationship between past climate conditions and human societies
Dagomar Degroot
Environmental historian who has led the push to form and name the field of HCS
What has led to the need for HCS?
The recent expansion of studies on climate juxtaposed by the lack of precision
When did the Holocene begin?
11,700 years ago, at the end of the last global ice age
When did the Pleistocene begin?
2.58 million years ago
What does the inclusion of the prefix “Anthro-“ in Anthropocene emphasize?
That humans have primarily contributed to the current trajectory of the climate
Anthropocene Working Group (AWG)
This body of experts on the Earth’s geological epochs proposed that the Anthropocene should officially be recognized as a new geological time interval in 2019
International Union of Geological Sciences
This group rejected the proposal to formally name the Anthropocene as a new geological epoch in March 2024
When did the modern historical profession become formalized?
The 1800s
Which modern historians included climate in their narratives of global history?
E. Le Roy Ladurie and Fernand Braudel
Climate determinism
The argument that climate sets the course for human history
Casual mechanism
What specifically the climate impacted that then became the exact thing that triggering a human response
How far does the chronological scale scale of human histories typically date back to?
Five or six thousand years ago (when the first major human societies emerged)
Rachel Carson
Author of Silent Spring and credited with helping humans develop an awareness of how much potential we have to alter the Earth
Silent Spring
This book documents the environmental damage caused by the use of pesticides like DDT
When was Silent Spring published?
1962
Dipesh Chakrabarty
An example of a scholar who argues that humans are reshaping the configuration of the Earth’s climate systems in a timespan that is exponentially shorter than natural processes
