Social Science Section 1 Flashcards
How are volcanos forcings?
The eruption of volcanos emits a layer of dust particles that shade vast region and cool these areas.
What is the process that describes the change in the natural world?
climate change
What does ESS stand for?
Earth System Science
How do greenhouses work?
The closed area allows for sun rays to enter the greenhouse but acts as a barriers for preventing heat from getting out. These places create great conditions for agriculture.
what are the four main subsystems of the ESS?
Geosphere , Hydrosphere , Biosphere , Atmosphere
What are some examples of greenhouse gases?
Water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane.
What is Anthropocence?
The idea that current climate conditions have been heavily influenced by human actions
What are the external forces that Impact the stability of the climate, and subsystems called?
Forcings
What are the reactions to climate change caused by forcings called?
Feedbacks
What are the two ways scientists classify feedbacks?
As positive and negative
What is the climate?
The weather over a long period of time
What are positive feedbacks?
A forcing that pushes the climate in the same direction (warm forcing results in warm feedback)
What is Earth System Science?
The scientific approach of studying the natural world that looks at the interactions between the air, water, land, and living organisms.
Define tipping point.
When positive feedback changes the climate to a point of no return.
True or False. There is a lot of continuity between the past. and the present in the way Earth’s subsystems interact to create climate conditions?
True
What is the Geosphere?
All the land, earth, and rock that make up the planet.
What new field focuses on the relationship between past climate conditions, and human societies?
history of climate and society (HCS)
True or False. All the interactions of the four sub systems happen at the same geographical scale
False
True or False humans have always thought that there actions impact the climate
False
Where do the geosphere and the other subsystems interact most?
The Earth’s Crust
What is the hydrosphere?
All the water on the Earth, in the ground, and in the atmosphere
What is the atmosphere?
Various gases
What are the different layers of the atmosphere?
Troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere, exosphere
What is the biosphere?
All living things inside, on, or around the Earth
What is the greenhouse gas effect?
Gases from Earth’s other subsystems trap heat in the lower layers of the atmosphere
Provide an example of positive feedback.
Warmer temperatures affect the hydrosphere melting if off. As there is no ice to reflect back solar energy, the hydrosphere absorbs it warming the climate even more.
How can greenhouse gas molecules contribute to global warming?
Infrared radiation can pass through the atmosphere and be absorb by the gasses. They are then reemitted in all directions by the green house molecules which contributes to Earth’s surface warming.
What has accelerated the Earth’s natural carbon cycle?
Human use of fossil fuels
What is the other name for the geosphere?
Lithosphere
What is negative feedback?
A feedback that results in the opposite outcome its forcing produces (cold forcing would produce warm feedback and vice versa)
True or False. There are five layers of the earth atmosphere
True
True or False. Can negative feedback push the climate to tipping point?
False. Only positive feedback can do this.
What reverses the greenhouse effect?
Human emission of greenhouse gases that concentrate in the atmosphere.
What is solar energy?
Energy from the Sun that heats up the Earth
True or False. Volcano dust can produce acid rain.
True
Positive Feedback.
Push Climate change to Tipping point; relations pushing in same direction
Tipping Point
the time the climate changes reaches a point of no return
Archive Of Nature
using evidence from nature (ie: Ice cores) to see what types of climate & when it took place
Archive of Society
using evidence from humanity (ie: written documents) to see what types of climate occurred & when
Proxy
Something from nature that gives indication of Past Climate Conditions
Precipitation
amount of rainfall through a specific amount of time.
Instrument
A tool used to measure data and feedback (Temperature, Precipitation, etc.) Often used to identify trends in the climate.
Negative feedback
Little to no change in climate; relations pushing and pulling against each other
example of Positive Feedback
Melting ice around the North Pole
example of Negative Feedback
Warmer conditions rase water temp of great lakes. This then leads to more water vapor & clouds in the atmosphere that cast shade, cooling back down the Earth
Polar Vortex
The Polar Vortex is a large area of low pressure & cold air surrounding the earth’s Poles.
T or F: Climate affects all 4 (5) subsystems
True
Sediment
Small pieces of rock broken apart by erosion. Tend to clump us into “Sedimentary rocks”
How do you find trends in the climate?
Reading a lot of sources & making your own opinion.
what is ice core sampling?
drilling out a large cylinder of Ice to see how much it grew during specific times
What are the pros that Archive of Nature provide?
Because of the recent invention of scientific instruments going into the archive of nature can provide us with more accurate data on recent temperature patterns
what is the main Con of the Archive of Society
It only goes back a couple hundreds to thousands years, & reliable measurements only go back ~200 years.
T or F: The Thermometer is a relatively recent invention, being made in the 1850s during the US Civil War By Benjamin Franklyn’s son, William Franklyn
False
What is the oldest instrument to be invented/When was it made?
The thermometer which was invented in 1700
T or F: Dendrochronology is the study of studying fossils to tell what the climate was like when that given animal was alive
False
Coral sampling
gathering data from the ocean’s coral
What does the layers and Sediment/Mud provide?
Composition and Contents of the water (such as pollen)
What can an old Glacier reveal?
What the atmospheric conditions were dating back hundreds to thousands of years
What is an Archive?
a physical repository of documents (ie. archive of nature or humanity)
what are the 3 most revealing sources of climate history in nature?
soil, ice, and trees
Scientist Hypothesize about polar vortex?
Warmer temperatures in the ocean and atmosphere weakened the polar vortex
Why are Trees one of the best sources from the Archive of Nature
Counting the rings can tell you not just how old it is, but also how wet/dry a particular season was.
How is Positive and Negative being defined in terms of weather feedbacks?
The relationship between the original forcing and impact.
What brought Phoenix, Arizona, attention on the news?
The record-breaking heat in summer 2023. Though records only date back to 1896.
What is precipitation?
Any weather that comes falling from the sky. (Rain, snow, hail, etc)
T or F: The Location of the recorded events do NOT affect the result.
False
What is a major Con of the Archive of Humanity?
It only goes back a couple hundreds to thousands years, & reliable measurements only go back ~200 years.
T or F: careful analysis is still required even after instruments
True
T or F: negative Feedback loops lead to worse Climate change
False
What does an ice core look like?
It is a very long cylinder in a long tube.
T or F: Can a singular scholar be a member of more than one field?
True
How is a new field made?
When a scholar finds useful information and develops effective methods for analyzing sources
T or F: Do fields with few perspectives help find the most accurate results?
False
T or F: Even with different fields it is still unlikely for us to get a reliable picture on past climate
False
T or F: Historical climatology or paleoclimatology investigates past climate change from the 1800 to today
False
T or F: Climatology uses the archives of nature from the investigations of the natural world
True
What are some skills climate historians have to help study the climate ?
Ability to understand the languages, find the text, and analytical techniques
Who was Christian Pfister?
A Swiss historian who led the creation of the field of climate history
T or F: Scholars can examine human-produced records for clues about past climate conditions
True
What is an example of a human-produced record
weather diaries, ship logbooks
What is a piece of art that depicts weather conditions.
Winter Landscape with Skaters, c, 1608, Hendrick Avercamp
Why were grain prices used as a marker for weather conditions
There is a correlation between certain types of weather and fruitful harvests that would cause prices to decline
Proxy
a person authorized to act on behalf of another
Why are paintings NOT a reliable source of climate history
The painting is not the same as a photograph, it might not be an accurate depiction of the area or time.
T or F: Scholars do not treat the information contained in narrative records as proxies for estimating climate history.
False
Weather Diary
record of weather experiments
Ship logbook
record of important events in the management, operation, and navigation of a ship
Why are grain prices not a reliable source of climate history
Other factors that are unrelated to whether also affect the prices of grain
T or F: Scholars can devise systems for taking narrative records and comparing them with other records to gain an idea of climate trends and conditions over time.
True
T or F: Narrative records are as reliable as modern instruments
False
Hendrick Avercamp
Dutch painter in the 17th century
What group in 2019 proposed that Anthropocene be officially recognized as a new geological time interval (epoch)?
Anthropocene Working Group (AWG)
According to the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) propose the Holocene ended and Anthropocene began?
1950 (mid-twentieth century)
Who rejected the proposal to officially declare the Anthropocene as a new geological epoch in March 2024?
The International Union of Geological Sciences, but they noted that it will continue to be used as an invaluable descriptor of human impact.
True or False? The International Union Geological Sciences accepted the proposal to formally name the Anthropocene the new epoch.
False, they rejected it in March 2024
What epoch do we still live in according to the formal geological time scale?
Holocene
Do scientists, politicians, and economists still use the term Anthropocene?
Yes, it is commonly used to label the recent climate shifts
Is the idea of the Anthropocene discredited due to the lack of official and specific recognition?
No, the lack of official recognition is simply the seriousness of scientists.
True or False? Most modern historians did not include climate in their narratives until about the year 2000
True
Who wrote about the climate in their narratives prior to 2000?
E. Le Roy Ladurie and Fernand Braudel
When did the modern historical profession become formalized in Europe?
1800s
What is a major challenge regarding events when combining the study of human history and climate history?
Causation. It is difficult to determine definitively if certain events in history had caused the next event to occur, or if it was just a coincidence and this can lead to biases
True or False: Historians and scientists are done sorting out the combined story of climate history and human history.
False
What is a way that scientists are trying to bring together the historical narrative?
They are placing the two histories over one another, using markings in time like political developments in order to place timelines.
What is climate determinism?
a method of telling historical narratives in which climate drives social and environmental changes over time (i.e. climate possibly caused an empire to fail or influenced their rules in society)
What is a potential weakness of combining histories?
It isn’t the best practice in history or science for scientists to prove their thesis without bias
Is climate determinism widely accepted today?
No (just because there is correlation does not mean their is causation)
What are causal mechanisms?
something that causes something else to occur. (Asks what SPECIFIC climate event was what triggered a human response)
How far back does the typical chronological history of humans date to?
Around five or six thousand years ago, but scholars can use archeological evidence from as far back as 40,000 years.
What has brought the field that studies climate change (science) and the scholarly fields that studies human history to overlap its studies?
Anthropocene (climate change has been influenced by human activities)
Who wrote Silent Spring, and did she intend to write about climate?
Rachel Carson wasn’t writing about climate, but she brought an understanding over human potential to alter the Earth
Who is credited with helping humans develop an awareness of how much potential we have to alter earth’s climate with her book that published in 1962?
Rachel Carson
Who in particular are the leading causes of climate change?
Humans
What did Rachel Carson’s book Silver Springs demonstrate? (Hint: think agriculture/crops)
The effect commercial pesticides have on transforming the ecosystem in only years (compared to the decades to generations it would take for this to happen naturally) and destroying living organisms
Name a scholar who argues that humans are reshaping the Earth’s climate system in a time span exponentially shorter than what would naturally happen?
Dipesh Chakrabarty
What civilizations left behind the most archeological evidence from ancient times?
Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China
The Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) is a special body apart of what commission?
the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS)
True or False: It is hard to determine if one event caused another or if they just happened together.
True
What chart does the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) and the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) to mark the Quaternary Periods? (It is the same chart that the AWG wanted the Anthropocene Epoch to be formally recognized in?
the International Chronostratigraphic Chart
According to a non western calendar how many years ago did the Holocene Epoch start?
11,700 years ago
What are the four stages/age of the Pleistocene Epoch?
From most years ago to least: Gelasian, Calabrian, Middle, Upper
What does the concept of the Antropocene refer to?
The scientific divisions of geological time that correspond to climatic conditions of the Earth
According to the International Commission on Stratigraphy, what is the name of the Eonothem/Eon?
Phanerozoic
When did the Pleistocene epoch start?
Around 2.58 million years ago
What does the inclusion of the prefix “anthro” strongly emphasize?
The fact that humans are the main contributors to the current trajectory of the climate, kind of like a positive feedback
According to the International Commission on Stratigraphy, what is the name of of Erathem/Era and what is the name of the system/period?
Cenozoic and Quaternary, respectfully
According to western calendars, when did the holocene epoch start?
9,700 BCE
True or False: Humans are very aware of the changes that occur during a human’s lifetime.
False
What resource makes up the Earth’s geosphere?
rocks, minerals and fossils
The cryosphere is part of the
hydrosphere
Which atmospheric layer is CLOSEST to Earth’s surface?
troposhere
Certain gases cause the greenhouse gas effect because they are
transparent, allowing the Sun’s rays to reach the surface of the Earth
Which external energy source is MOST vital to Earth?
solar
Most interactions between the geosphere and other subsystems take place within the Earth’s
crust
The term “lithosphere” incorporates the Greek word for
stone
Which of the following natural cycles has faced rapid acceleration from the use of fossil fuels?
a. phosphorous
b. carbon
c. nitrogen
d. water
e. sulfur
carbon
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 following subsystems would a fossilized human belong?
a. atmosphere
b. hydrosphere
c. geosphere
d. biosphere
e. cryosphere
geosphere
All of the following aspects of climate change focus on the hydrosphere EXCEPT
a. air moisture depletion
b. sea level rise
c. severe droughts
d. melting ice
e. warming oceans
air moisture depletion
Scientists label feedbacks as either
positive or negative
Which of the following items would MOST likely appear in the troposphere?
a. radiosonde
b. spaceship
c. hot air balloon
d. satellite
e. aurora
hot air balloon
Which term refers to factors that influence climate change?
forcings
Climate over time is BEST described as
stable
Early in which century were temperatures noticeably cooler in the Northern Hemisphere?
1700s
What led to the cooler temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere?
fewer sunspots
How long is the longest of the three Milankovitch cycles?
100,000 years
What is a Milankovitch cycle?
models of the Earth’s relationship to the sun
How long is the shortest Milankovitch cycle?
26,000 years
For which phenomenon is the Milankovitch cycle responsible?
ice ages
Volcanic eruptions cause all of the following effects EXCEPT
a. acid rain
b. ozone destruction
c. warmer temperatures
d. ash clouds
e. greenhouse gas release
warmer temperatures
Which of the following compounds do volcanoes NOT emit?
a. HF
b. SO2
c. HCl
d. H2SO4
e. CO2
H2SO4
Which of the following gasses plays a role in ozone destruction?
a. HCl
b. ClO
c. ClONO2
d. N2O5
e. ash
ClO
In which part of the atmosphere does cirrus cloud nucleation occur?
troposphere
Multiple volcanic eruptions can result in
lower average global temperature
Which element of a car BEST exemplifies the greenhouse effect?
a. steering wheel
b. windows
c. roof
d. dashboard
e. doors
windows
Which of the following gasses is a greenhouse gas?
a. ammonia
b. argon
c. nitrogen
d. water vapor
e. oxygen
water vapor (along with carbon dioxide and methane)
What is the primary cause of the greenhouse effect?
human activity
In which direction does positive feedback move?
always the same direction as forcing
The tipping point of climate change is the point at which it reaches a(n)
point of no return
What effect does negative feedback have on climate change?
lessening
The cryosphere is a subsystem of the
hydrosphere
What effect of warmer temperatures occurs around the North Pole?
Ice on the ocean’s surface melts
Which of the following events is considered positive feedback?
a. new tree species growing in South America
b. ice melting in the North Pole
c. the decreasing population of tiger species
d. lakes experiencing increased snowfall
e. the circadian rhythm of animals shifting later in the day
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.
Which of the following examples is a negative feedback to a forcing that increases Earth’s temperatures?
a. clouds that cool the temperature
b. melting ice that increases the temperature
c. animal species going extinct from extreme temperatures
d. human efforts to reduce carbon emissions
e. emission of greenhouse gasses that increases the temperature
clouds that cool the temperature
Which description BEST fits the polar vortex?
a. cold air circulating the North Pole
b. cold air circulating the Western Hemisphere
c. warm air circulating the North Pole
d. cold air circulating the South Pole
e. warm air circulating the Western Hemisphere
cold air circulating the North Pole
Snowfall near lakes that experience cold temperature from clouds is known as
lake effect snow
What happens to cold air when the polar vortex weakens?
It shifts southward to the United States.
Which of the following events is considered negative feedback?
a. glaciers melting in northern regions of the world
b. shifts in the polar vortex
c. trees experiencing poor health from water contamination
d. increasing levels of industrial production
e. ocean acidification harming coral reefs
shifts in the polar vortex
What type of solar radiation does the Earth emit, reflect, and absorb?
infrared
Scholars conducting a historical investigation will need
sources
Which of the following items would an archive generally NOT have?
a. preserved specimens
b. personal letters
c. climate records
d. journal entries
e. ship logs
preserved specimens
Which of the following archives is an archive of society?
a. a shipment of trees to be processed in a paper plant
b. a collection of wolf population records
c. a museum exhibit of paleolithic fossils
d. a well-studied ice core from the North Pole
e. a laboratory full of soil samples
a collection of wolf population records
Climate influences all of the following subsystems EXCEPT
a. weather
b. living organisms
c. air
d. earth
e. water
weather
Which of the following climate scientists would be MOST likely to use ice core sampling?
a. a scientist who is studying the density of a glacier across the past decade
b. a scientist who is studying ocean temperatures since the Paleolithic period
c. a scientist who is studying oceanic pollution across the past thousand years
d. a scientist who is studying atmospheric carbon dioxide content across the past hundred years
e. a scientist who is studying the change in ocean levels since the Industrial Revolution
a scientist who is studying atmospheric carbon dioxide content across the past hundred years
What is the furthest time period an ice core from an old glacier can effectively study?
hundreds of thousands of years ago
If a climate scientist wanted to study how rainfall has changed over time, what might they examine?
tree stumps
Which of the following words form one of the Greek roots in dendrochronology?
a. water
b. study
c. time
d. ice
e. animal
time
Which of the following definitions BEST describes dendrochronology?
a. the use of fossils to study the Earth’s past ecosystems
b. the practice of learning from ecological history
c. the process of learning information from trees
d. the study of time
e. the history of the Earth spanning the last thousand years
the process of learning information from trees
What ecological information can studying sedimentation or mud at the bottom of lakes reveal?
the content of the water
What ecological information can coral sampling reveal?
past temperatures
The thermometer’s invention occurred around the year
1700
Which of the following statements BEST describes an advantage of the archives of society when compared with the archives of nature?
a. The archives of society provide more precise dating.
b. The archives of society cover a wider geographical range.
c. The archives of society span a longer timeframe.
d. The archives of society are more factually objective.
e. The archives of society follow more consistent trends.
The archives of society provide more precise dating.
Which of the following statements BEST describes an advantage of the archives of nature when compared with the archives of society?
a. The archives of nature account for human impact on climate more thoroughly.
b. The archives of nature are less prone to measurement error.
c. The archives of nature account for omitted variable bias better.
d. The archives of nature far predate the archives of society.
e. The archives of nature are universally easier to interpret.
The archives of nature far predate the archives of society.
Researchers at the University of Georgia were able to estimate roughly 1,200 years of Northern Hemisphere temperature trends through analysis of
tree rings
The archives of society are BEST described as
records of human activity
Consistent temperature records in the United States became increasingly common in the
late nineteenth century
A qualitative account of a past climate event is often referred to by modern climate scientists as a(n)
proxy
Which of the following statements BEST describes how the collection of precipitation data is deceptively complex?
a. The water cycle makes accurate measurements of true precipitation levels nearly impossible.
b. The scientific community disagrees about what counts as precipitation.
c. Precipitation measurement systems vary widely across the world.
d. Much work is needed to grasp trends based on individual points of data from disparate locations.
e. Precipitation regression models often have instances of spurious correlation.
Much work is needed to grasp trends based on individual points of data from disparate locations.
The glacier-adjacent town of Grindelwald is located in
Switzerland
What Dutch painter created the 1608 work Winter Landscape with Skaters?
Hendrick Avercamp
The 1608 painting Winter Landscape with Skaters is housed in the
Rijksmuseum
Some climate scientists deduce information about past weather patterns from the price of
grain
Which of the following statements BEST expresses why some scientists are skeptical to draw conclusions about past climatic conditions based on the prices of goods?
a. Non-weather factors can significantly affect grain prices.
b. Many pre-modern records have been destroyed.
c. Grain prices were rarely measured in stable currency.
d. The supply of grain varied substantially.
e. Demand for grain was highly inelastic in pre-modern economies.
Non-weather factors can significantly affect grain prices.
In pre-modern times detailed information on the weather was MOST often recorded in
ship logbooks
A common characteristic of historians, social scientists, and scientists is their
specialization
Findings about climate history often
do not perfectly align with across fields of study
How does historical climatology differ from paleoclimatology?
Paleoclimatology and historical climatology are effectively synonyms for the same field of study.
Historical climatologists often obtain climate information from
naturally preserved samples
What development of the 1800s causes paleoclimatologists to generally focus on prior centuries?
Instruments that could record climate data were invented.
Climate historians gather primary forms of evidence from the archival accounts of
human society
The work of climate historians does NOT involve
analyzing natural records
Christian Pfister demonstrated that archival sources could be effectively used to
produce reconstructions of historical climates
What climate historian helped create the field of the history of climate and society?
Dagomar Degroot
From which scientific field of study did the history of climate and society NOT evolve?
a. genetics
b. linguistics
c. sociology
d. paleoclimatology
e. economics
sociology
Which two scales of measurement are PRIMARILY important to the field of the history of climate and society?
a. mathematical scale and historical scale
b. precisionist scale and generalist scale
c. contextual scale and populational scale
d. chronological scale and geographical scale
e. geological scale and temporal scale
chronological scale and geographical scale
What epoch precedes the Holocene?
Pleistocene
Which age occurred FIRST?
a. Gelasian
b. Greenlandian
c. Meghalayan
d. Northgrippian
e. Chibanian
Greenlandian
What two aspects of climate change can scientists understand by studying past climate change?
what causes change and how the Earth reacts to forcings that cause climate change
What is the main cause of global warming?
humans releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere
Why are there strong discontinuities between past and present climate change?
Humans are currently burning fossil fuels at unprecedented levels.
Which of the following terms is used to describe climate change today?
a. Ecocene
b. Holocene
c. Geocene
d. Pleistocene
e. Anthropocene
Anthropocene
Which of the following terms is used to describe the climate of the current era?
a. Geocene
b. Holocene
c. Pleistocene
d. Ecocene
e. Anthropocene
Holocene
When did the Holocene begin?
at the end of the last global Ice Age, or about 11.7 thousand years ago
Which epoch came before the Holocene?
Pleistocene
Why are systems of classification important?
They organize human knowledge.
Which of the following eras is NOT a subdivision of the Pleistocene epoch?
a. Calabrian
b. Cenozoic
c. Gelasian
d. Upper
e. Middle
Cenozoic
When did the Pleistocene epoch begin?
2.58 million years ago
Who would NOT use the term Anthropocene?
a. an environmental scientist
b. an astronomist
c. an economist
d. a social scientist
e. a politician
an astronomist
How does the term Anthropocene make it easier for people to discuss climate change?
It provides a way to name what is currently happening to Earth’s climate.
When was the modern historical profession formalized?
1800s
Which of the following early historians included climate in their histories?
a. Dipesh Chakrabarty
b. Christian Pfister
c. Fernand Braudel
d. Michael McCormick
e. Rachel Carson
Fernand Braudel
From which country did the first historians to include climate in their historical narratives come?
France
During which decade did historians first include climate in their narratives of global history?
2000s
The modern study of the connection between climate history and human history can be BEST described as
dynamic and ongoing
Historians generally divide history into chronological periods that are marked by
political developments
The history of China is often portrayed as a succession of
dynasties
What empire succeeded the Greek empire in the Mediterranean narrative of history?
Roman
Which social events did scientists MOST often link to long periods of drought?
mass revolts
What PRIMARY problem arises when scholars attempt to link history and science?
bias in conclusions
What PRIMARY problem arises when scholars study climate science alongside history?
constraints from using existing narratives
Approximately when was the climatic optimum?
7,000 years ago
What was the climatic optimum?
hottest temperature recorded during the Holocene
How much hotter was the highest point in the last 10,000 years to the coldest point?
6 C
Which civilization arose during the same time as the hottest point on the climate chart?
Mesopotamia
When was the climate coldest in the last 10,000 years?
10,000 years ago
Scholars MOST often lack evidence to prove
casual relationships
Older generations of scholars studying the field of the History of Climate and Society argued for a strong link between
favorable climates and thriving empires
Which of the following ideas BEST matches climate determinism?
a. Humanity heavily alters its climate.
b. Climate sets the course for human history.
c. The Earth’s climate goes through predictable cycles.
d. The Earth’s climate stays relatively stable over time.
e. Climate change is primarily driven by solar activity.
Climate sets the course for human history.
Most modern scholars tend to
reject climate determinism
History of Climate and Society scholars studying climate determinism place special emphasis on
causal mechanisms
The scale of human history typically dates back to civilizations such as
China and Egypt and Ancient Mesopotamia
Scholars have created accounts of human life as far back as
40,000 years ago
Studies of which two of the following fields did not overlap until recently?
climate change and human history
The term “Anthropocene” refers to
the current state of climate change brought by humans
During which of the following centuries did humans FIRST develop the capability to significantly impact the climate?
20th century
Which of the following scholars argued humans are reshaping the climate faster than natural processes?
a. Paul J. Crutzen
b. Dipesh Chakrabarty
c. Bert Bolin
d. J.R. McNeill
e. Dagomar Degroot
Dipesh Chakrabarty
Which of the following causal relationships does NOT describe a causal mechanism?
a. The grain yield is high and prices drop.
b. Trade routes expand and cultural exchange accelerates.
c. The climate cools and civilizations flourish.
d. Precipitation increases and agricultural yields rise.
e. Temperatures increase and large mammals go extinct.
The climate cools and civilizations flourish
A significant challenge in studying today’s climate change lies in
matching incongruent time scales
How many subsystems of the Earth have scientists designated?
4: earth, water, air and life
Which term describes manmade records for studying the climate?
archives of society
How do climate historians differ from historical climatologists?
Climate historians study manmade sources.
Another term for historical climatology is
paleoclimatology
How does the history of climate and society differ from other fields of climate science?
It analyzes climate change from a multidisciplinary perspective
