Global Climates Flashcards
How does Isotope fractionation work with O16 and O18?
- O16 is lighter and evaporated easy, leaving ocean O18 rich
- moved towards poles (glaciers or land)
- precipitation has the O18 fall first from the clouds, then O16
- O16 becomes locked in the ice OR runs back to ocean
Climate and Climatology is..
weather of over time, and the study of such
Genetic Climate Classification
-based on causative factors
Empirical Climate Classification
-based on statistical data (temperature and precipitation)
Applied Climate Classification
-created for particular climate-related problems
Six Basic Climate Categories
- Tropical
- Mesothermal
- Microthermal
- Polar
- Highland
- Dry
Polar and Highland
- dry cold air
- extreme daylength range
- high albedo
- low precipitation
- ice cap and ice sheet climate , tundra climate, polar marine climate
Dry Climates
- 15 and 30 N and S
- dry subsiding air in high pressure systems
- mountain rain shadows
- continental interiors
- above 30 (N) semiarid grasslands
Microthermal Climates
- lowering sun angles and increase daylentgh variability causes temperature ranges
- cool to cold
- cP air mass in winter and convectional thunderstorms in summer
- 21% of land surface
Mesothermal Climates
- summers hot to warm to cool
- shifting maritime and continental air massses
- P from low (summer) and high (winter) systems = changing weather
- humid subtropical: winter dry, hot summer, moist all year
Tropical Climates
- 36% of land and ocean
- consistent daylength, insolation, warm , maritime air masses, shifting ITCZ
- tropical rain forest climate - constant ITCZ, warm and water surplus
Climate Change: Tropical Zone width, Rossby waves, ice mass, ocean heat
- zone widened >2 degrees
- Rossby waves amplified
- ice sheets losing mass
- ocean heat increased
Climate Models
- mathematical
- based on established science
- discretization, variable spatial and temporal resolutions
Climate Model Data
- observations
- proxy methods (paleoclimatology)
Climate Proxies
-observations providing info about past environmental coniditions
Types of Climate Proxies
- geological
- biotic
- corals, speleothems
- tree rings
Climate Archives
- lake sediments (10 y to 20 kY to 30 My)
- ocean sediments ( up to 170 My)
- land cores (Gy)
- ice cores (1 y to 0.9 My)