OCC Social Science Flashcards
What scientific term BEST describes the environmental effects of climate change?
Feedback
What is generally not found in archives?
Climate records
What do scholars need to conduct a historical investigation?
Sources
The cryosphere is part of the
Hydrosphere
What atmospheric layer is CLOSEST to the Earth’s surface
Troposphere
In which direction does positive feedback move?
Always in the same direction as forcing.
Certain gases cause the greenhouse gas effect because they are
Reflective
Which external energy source is MOST vital to Earth
Solar
What is the difference between an archive of
society and an archive of nature?
Archive of society holds written information, while archive of nature holds information from nature.
The tipping point of climate change is the point at which it reaches?
The Point of No Return.
Describe an example of an Archive of Society
A collection of wolf population records
What subsystem does climate NOT influence?
Weather
The term ‘lithosphere’ incorporates the Greek word for
stone
What natural cycle has faced rapid acceleration from the use of fossil fuels?
water
What scientific approach views the Earth’s land, oceans, and atmosphere as a single structure?
earth system science
A meteorological rocket would MOST likely be found in the
mesosphere
To which of the subsystems would a fossilized human being belong?
geosphere
What aspect of climate change involving water does not focus on the hydrosphere?
air moisture depletion
Scientists label feedbacks as
positive and negative
What effect of warmer temperatures occurs around the North Pole?
Ice on the Ocean’s surface melts.
Which term refers to factors that influence climate change?
forcings
What event is considered positive feedback?
Ice melting in the North Pole.
What relationship occurs between solar energy and ice or ocean water on the ocean surface?
Ice reflects; ocean water absorbs.
A common characteristic of historians, social scientists, and scientists is their…
specialization
What are forcings
Specific causes of climate change
What are natural features that
show signs of being affected by climate?
Proxies
The creation of a new scholarly field often begins with…
the development of new methods of analyzing evidence.
How would you describe ice core sampling?
The examining rings of ice in the Arctic
Climate over time is BEST described as
Volatile
What is the furthest time period an ice core
from an old glacier can effectively study?
Hundreds of thousands of years ago
Findings about climate history often…
don’t perfectly align with across fields of study.
How does historical climatology differ from
paleoclimatology?
They are basically different names for the same field.
