Environmental Threats to the planet 2.3.1

Question 1

Anthropocene

Answer 1

Suggested that we have entered a new geological era, where human activity is the dominant influence on climate and the environment.

Question 2

glacial

Answer 2

A period in the earth’s history when polar and mountain ice sheets were unusually extensive across the earth’s surface.

Question 3

global warming

Answer 3

A trend associated with climate change involving a warming trend (0.85C since 1880)

Question 4

Holocene

Answer 4

The current geological epoch which started some 11,500 years ago when the glaciers began to retreat.

Question 5

ice age

Answer 5

A glacial episode characterised by lower than average temperatures and during which ice covers more of the Earth’s surface

Question 6

ice core

Answer 6

A core sample that is typically removed from an ice sheet, most commonly from the polar ice caps of Antarctica, Greenland or from high mountain glaciers elsewhere. Radioactive elements, either of natural origin or created by nuclear testing, can be used to date the layers of ice in the cores.

Question 7

interglacial

Answer 7

An interglacial period is a geological interval of warmer global average temperature lasting thousands of years that separates consecutive glacial periods within an ice age. The current Holocene interglacial began at the end of the Pleistocene, about 11,700 years ago.

Question 8

Little Ice Age

Answer 8

The Little Ice Age was a period of regionally cold conditions between roughly AD 1300 and 1850.

Question 9

Medieval Warming Period

Answer 9

c900–1400, during which warmer temperatures existed in many parts of the world.

Question 10

paleoclimatology

Answer 10

The study of past climates: as we are unable to use meteorological data to analyse
past climates we have to use climate proxies (preserved physical characteristics
of the past which act as natural recorders of climate variability). We can use these proxies to reconstruct past climates.

Question 11

Pleistocene

Answer 11

the geological epoch which lasted from about 2,588,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the world’s most recent period of repeated glaciations.

Question 12

Quaternary

Answer 12

The most recent geological period covering the last 2.6 million years and including the Pleistocene and Holocene eras