Geography Flashcards
What was the Quaternary period?, and how long did it last? What were the other names for it? What were the two phases?
The Quaternary period was a time when the earth’s climate is dominated by cold climate and ice, lasted 2.6 million years. Also known as the Pleistocene. The two phases were inter glacials (warmer) and glacials (colder).
Green house effect vs. enhanced greenhouse effect
Naturally occurring process where greenhouse gases in the atmosphere trap some of the heat from the sun and keep it regulating earth, the enhanced effect is when human activity worsens the effect.
Ice core
A long cylinder of glacial ice that traps layers of gases, maintaining their CO2 concentration levels.
Ice age
An ice sheet spreads over the world
Tundra
Where the ice sheet doesn’t reach, still has soil under layers of snow, plants can survive.
Land bridge + isthmus
A strip of landing connecting two continents + narrows piece of land connecting two larger areas.
Aerosols
Tiny particles of dust, volcanic ash and gas in the atmosphere that can reflect the sun’s energy into space
Milankovich cycles
Eccentricity (orbit around sun), obliquity (tilt), orbital precession (spin)
4 Facts about the Earth’s climate system:
- 149,000,000km
- 30% reflected into space by clouds + ice
- 70% absorbed by atmosphere, land and oceans
- Without greenhouse effect earth would be - 18•c
Laki eruption (1783)
- Gilbert White (clergyman)
- Happened in summer
- biggest eruption in past 1000 years
- 50m deep, 600km2, 15km3
Fissure Volcano
Magma comes out the ground in lines
Carbon Cycle + Carbon Sinks (also known as Carbon sequestration
Involves the storage and movement of carbon + absorbs and stores carbon
Anthropogenic + mitigation
Caused by humans
To lessen the impacts (without intention of stopping)
Keeling curve
Highest point - May
Lowest point - Oct
Polar bears
- 20,000 bears live in the artic, 1,200 live in the Hudson Bay
- 50% - 75% body fat loss during spring
Churchill
Manitoba, Canada
Tree rings (dendrochronology)
Big rings = warmer, wetter climate, vice versa.
Measuring tree rings is known as
Proxies
Impacts of climate change by 2020
+1.2°c
35,000 died in heatwave
London 9°c hotter than countryside
4,000 trapped, 17 hospitalised
Impacts by 2050
+2.5°c
Olives, lemons, peaches, apricots, kiwi, almonds
Impacts by 2080
+4°c
In 1953, storm surges killed 30,000
5m tall wall
Negatives and positives of global warming
Negative - area and yields increase, longer growing season, plants grow further north
Positive - arctic plants extinct, coastal port flooding, forest fires, £10 billion flood defences
How much carbon would be released if forests were destroyed?
15 years global emissions
What source of energy has China been relying on?
Coal, 364 stations per year
