Final Review Flashcards
Define Weather:
Short term natural events in a place
Define Climate:
Long term weather trends often defined by temperature and precipitation
Define Climate Variability:
Deviations of climate variables
from a given mean state at all spatial and temporal scales
beyond that of individual weather events
Define Climate Change:
A change in the state of the climate
that can be identified (e.g., by using statistical tests) by
changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties
and that persists for an extended period
What are some key insights from the paleoclimate record?
Climate has been in constant flux throughout the history of Earth, but it is not warming at an unprecedented rate
What are the 5 natural drivers of climate change?
Global energy balance, sun spot cycles, earth’s orbit, volcanoes, and ocean cycles
What are the physical effects of increasing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere?
Increased greenhouse effect – rising global temperatures, sea level rise, extreme weather events, desertification, etc.
Define a climate impact:
The consequences of realized risks on natural and human systems due to climate change.
Define a Hazard:
The potential occurrence of a natural or human caused physical event that could cause loss of life or injury, and/or cause damage to infrastructure
Define exposure:
The presence of people, services, social or cultural places that could be effected by a hazard
Define vulnerability:
predisposition to be adversely
affected… [as a] product of intersecting social processes
that result in inequalities in socioeconomic status and
income, and are exacerbated by exposure
List 5 categories of climate impact that the IPCC tracks:
Water scarcity, agriculture/crop production, infectious diseases, heat/malnutrition/other, and damages to infrastructure
Climate risk =
hazard + exposure + vulnerability
What are 5 key takeaways about global climate impacts?
- climate impacts everything
- hazards have generally gotten warmer and more extreme
- a little bit of warming can make a big difference
- not all impacts are negative
- some impacts are reversible, others are not
- impacts are compounding and cascading
According to Eve Darian-Smith, what are the 3 ways to interpret wildfires?
- About fire (empirical dimensions)
- With fire (relational dimensions)
- Through fire (spatial/temporal dimensions)
According to Eve Darian-Smith, what are two intersecting trends that shape global responses to climate change?
Surges in anti-democratic policies and anti-environmentalist policies
Define adaptation to Climate Change:
the process of adjustment to actual or expected climate and its effets
What are the 7 principles that assure effective climate adaptation?
- avoid maladaptation
- resilient adaptation
- transformative adaptation
- just adaptation
- mainstream adaptation
- needs to be financed
- have synergies with mitigation
What is the key takeaway about adaptation finance?
Financing adaptation is only going to get more expensive, we should be doing it NOW
What are the 3 key international climate treaties?
- 1992 UNFCCC
- 1997 Kyoto Protocol
- 2015 Paris Agreement
What is a social movement?
a collective effort with some degree of organization, it must challenge an existing institutional or cultural authority, it must use means outside institutional channels
Define dutiful, disruptive, and dangerous dissent:
Dutiful: working within the system, lobbying
Disruptive: working outside of the system, protests
Dangerous: working to create a new system
What are the 4 principles of a successful climate movement?
- Work with a broad coalition
- Frame the issue
- Act based on a theory of change
- Dangerous/disruptive/dutiful
What is a frame?
A package of meaning that connects to idea you already have in order to make it easier to understand
What is resilient adaptation?
Adaptation that enables settlements to better plan, adapt, and thrive in the face of a changing climate
What is transformative adaptation?
a process that may involve institutional reforms, cultural changes and the challenging of assumptions, and involves large-scale changes that are new to a location or system, generate long-term impacts and/or produce a new social-ecological system
What is just adaptation?
Adaptation that ensures that workers and vulnerable communities are at the center of planning and design efforts to reduce the impacts of climate change
What is mainstream adaptation?
Incorporating climate change adaptation strategies into general planning programs and strategies
