Past, Present and Future Climate Change

Question 1

What is the most common way that climate scientists gather data concerning the past?

Answer 1

Polar Ice Cores

Question 2

What is the overwhelming cause of temperature trends over hundreds of thousands of years?

Answer 2

Solar Cycles

Question 3

What are Heinrich periods?

Answer 3

Smaller snapshots of climate change over thousands of years

Question 4

How long are the impacts of ocean CO2 absorption, storage and release prolonged over? What does this mean for climate?

Answer 4

hundreds and even thousands of years. This can act as only an enhancer of climate changes over the top of the main solar cycle climate drivers.

Question 5

What disproves changes in the ocean carbon cycle are the explanation for the changes within the heinrich periods?

Answer 5

If they were the driver then the changes would be the same for both hemispheres, but they are not. Changes in the ocean carbon cycle would cause uniform results between both hemispheres.

Question 6

Which hemisphere experienced the biggest changes in its climate over the heinrich period?

Answer 6

Northern

Question 7

What disproves changes in the atmospheric circulation as the explanation for the changes within the heinrich periods?

Answer 7

Atmospheric changes would also produce uniform results across both hemispheres as it is symmetrical.

Question 8

What is the explanation for the changes in climate within the heinrich period?

Answer 8

Thermohaline Circulation Changes

Question 9

What is the reason for changes in the thermohaline circulation? What isn’t and why?

Answer 9

Density changes are affected by salinity and evaporation of freshwater. There is little evaporation in the polar regions of the Atlantic and so changes in salinity are key.

Question 10

Where do the flows within the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, part of the thermohaline circulation, originate from?

Answer 10

Atlantic Polar Regions

Question 11

Why does salinity in the North Atlantic polar regions change?

Answer 11

Input of freshwater

Question 12

How do changes to the thermohaline circulation (AMOC) cause changes in climate within the heinrich period?

Answer 12

During glacial periods ice in the North Atlantic accumulates which then flows south in to the ocean. This freshwater is less dense and so effectively stops sinking. Previously these sinking flows would distribute this water to the equator but this is now stopped.

Question 13

Why were the climatic changes in the heinrich period more extreme in the Northern hemisphere compared to the south?

Answer 13

Because the input of freshwater only took place in the North Atlantic. Which meant only that part had its distribution altered.

Question 14

What lead to the false perception that in 1998 then over the next ten years that temperature increases had begun to slow down?

Answer 14

the 1998 El Nino was so strong that it caused temperatures for that year and the few following to increase so much that on a graph this appeared to level out the much higher temperatures many years later creating a flat period that appeared to be no growth

Question 15

What other el nino event is having a similar effect but to a lesser extent?

Answer 15

2016

Question 16

What is the La Nina phenomenon?

Answer 16

surface winds travelling East to West speed up after el nino that drags the warmer surface waters to accumulate on the western pacific and upwelling takes place on the east.

Question 17

What is the el nino phenomenon?

Answer 17

processes cause the pacific surface winds to weaken that allows the warmer ocean surface temperatures to spread out. This lid on the ocean causes the atmosphere above to warm uniformly through conduction. The spatial contrast in atmospheric temperatures and pressure no longer exists over the oceans and is now closer to the continental boundaries.

Question 18

What become the new boundaries of atmospheric pressure contrast during el nino?

Answer 18

West Coast of South America and South East Asia

Question 19

What happens to the climate of those areas under the atmospheric pressure boundaries and others?

Answer 19

They are located under intense atmospheric convention currents which causes the weather to become very dry. Other climates are also affected by changes in the Walker Cell.

Question 20

What happens to marine biology during el nino?

Answer 20

Warm ocean surface water prevents upwelling from the depths which means nutrients, minerals and chlorophyll cannot reach organisms at the surface and so their populations decline.

Question 21

What is expected to happen to the AMOC in the future and why?

Answer 21

The increased greenhouse effect will cause the atmosphere to become warmer and able to hold more moisture. This will cause precipitation to be much more intense in the poles, and equator also. This will provide a freshwater input in the North Atlantic which will cause the AMOC to therefore weaken.