Revision Flashcards
What is energy flux?
The amount of energy reaching the Earth per unit time per unit area.
What is Earth’s mean albedo?
0.3
What is monitoring the Earth’s energy budget?
CERES has been monitoring the energy budget since 1997.
What is the Coriolis force?
Deflection caused by Earth’s rotation. Acting right in the Northern Hemisphere and vice versa in the South.
Why are the poles (especially the Arctic) warming faster than the rest of the world?
- Changes to albedo
- Thinner atmosphere and drier air are heated faster.
- The transport of energy to the poles by large weather systems.
What can change the Earth’s energy balance?
- Fluctuations in solar output.
- Milankovitch cycles.
- Changing the amount of atmospheric GHG.
- Changing Earth’s albedo through land use change or
areosols.
What is the definition of a mass extinction, and what causes it?
A 75% loss of all species in a geologically short space of time.
- Destruction of habitat
- Hunting
- Introduction of invasive species.
How long does a complete cycle through the oceans take?
About 1000 years.
How will global warming impact ocean circulation?
Warmer temps will melt the Greenland ice sheet, resulting in an increase in freshwater which is less likely to sink. This will slow the southward flow of deep, cold water and therefore the North Atlantic current which replaces it.
What monitors the North Atlantic Overturning Circulation?
The RAPID array.
How does global warming cause sea levels to rise?
- Thermal expansion
2. The added water from melting ice sheets and glaciers.
What is coastal squeeze?
When the eroding shoreline reaches a sea wall causing the beach to narrow due to the sediment deficit.
What is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?
Discovered in 1997, it is a million sq mile patch of rubbish mainly comprised of tiny plastic pieces.
What are biogeochemical cycles?
The recycling and reuse of organic molecules and elements.
What is the compost bomb instability?
An explosive release of soil carbon from peatlands or permafrost into the atmosphere which occurs above a critical rate of global warming.