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Social Science Pentathlon 24-25 > Social Science Section I > Flashcards

Social Science Section I Flashcards

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1
Q

What is Earth System Science (ESS)?

A

a new approach to studying the natural world that looks at the Earth’s systems as a whole

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2
Q

What does ESS stand for?

A

Earth System Science

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3
Q

The ideas learned from ESS help us establish an understanding of what?

A

climate change

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4
Q

What is a multidisciplinary approach?

A

an approach that combines research from different academic fields

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5
Q

How does a multidisciplinary approach help when studying climate change?

A

it gives us a more complete picture of the history of climate change

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6
Q

What is the Anthropocene?

A

a new geological era where humans have become the force that changes the planet

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7
Q

Since about which year has the world entered a new era of climate history?

A

1950

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8
Q

ESS is broken into different parts called _____________.

A

subsystems

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9
Q

What are the four subsystems of ESS?

A

geosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere

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10
Q

What are external forces that alter the stability of the weather and climate?

A

forcings

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11
Q

What reactions are produced when forcings alter the climate?

A

either positive feedback or negative feedback

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12
Q

What do the Earth’s systems interact with each other to influence?

A

weather and climate

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13
Q

What is a scale?

A

the scope of the investigation

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14
Q

An ocean warming is how large/small of a scale?

A

very large scale

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15
Q

A stream drying up is how large/small of a scale?

A

a small scale

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16
Q

What does the geosphere consist of?

A

all the land, earth, and rock on Earth

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17
Q

What is another term for geosphere?

A

lithosphere

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18
Q

Lithosphere incorporates the Greek word for what?

A

rock or stone

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19
Q

What is the Geological time scale?

A

a measure of time based on the record of rocks

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20
Q

What created mountains, volcanoes, and oceans?

A

plate tectonics

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21
Q

Where do most of the interactions with the geosphere and the other Earth’s subsystems occur?

A

the crust

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22
Q

How does the biosphere influence the geosphere?

A

by influencing the composition of the soil

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23
Q

How do mountain ranges influence the hydrosphere?

A

by causing clouds to form and rainfall

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24
Q

What does the hydrosphere consist of?

A

all the water on Earth

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25
Q

Some scholars count ice as a different subsystem called the ______________.

A

cryosphere

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26
Q

What does the atmosphere consist of?

A

various gases

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27
Q

How have scholars divided up the atmosphere?

A

into different layers or zones

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28
Q

What is the lowest layer of the atmosphere?

A

the troposphere

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29
Q

What is the 2nd lowest layer of the atmosphere?

A

stratosphere

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30
Q

What is the middle layer of the atmosphere?

A

mesosphere

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31
Q

What is the 2nd highest layer of the atmosphere?

A

thermosphere

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32
Q

What is the highest layer of the atmosphere?

A

exosphere

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33
Q

What part of Earth’s subsystems is involved in the greenhouse effect?

A

the atmosphere

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34
Q

What is the greenhouse effect?

A

light from the Sun gets absorbed in the atmosphere, and the heat gets trapped there by greenhouse gases

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35
Q

What type of gas is CO2?

A

a greenhouse gas

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36
Q

Is the greenhouse effect good?

A

yes, but to an extent; too much is bad, but we still need some

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37
Q

What does the biosphere consist of?

A

all living things on Earth

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38
Q

The use of fossil fuels has accelerated which cycle?

A

the carbon cycle

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39
Q

What is the carbon cycle?

A

the cycling of carbon, where humans and animals exhale carbon and plants absorb it to produce oxygen

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40
Q

What is the Earth’s climate system?

A

the different parts that combine to shape Earth’s climate

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41
Q

What type of system is Earth’s climate?

A

an open system

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42
Q

What are the 3 most influential forcings that influence Earth’s climate?

A

solar energy, volcanoes, and greenhouse gases

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43
Q

What energy is incoming in Earth’s climate system?

A

solar energy from the Sun

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44
Q

How does solar energy affect Earth?

A

it heats it up and provides light

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45
Q

What do cooler temperatures in the 1600s and 1700s correspond with? (Sun activity)

A

fewer sunspots and low solar activity

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46
Q

What are patterns in Earth’s movement around the Sun that influence the Sun’s impact on climate?

A

the Milankovitch cycles

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47
Q

What does the shade that volcanoes produce when they erupt and spread particles cause?

A

cooling of temperatures over vast regions

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48
Q

What type of effect is taking place in a car with the windows down and Solar energy incoming?

A

the greenhouse effect, this is because when the energy goes in, it gets trapped and warms the car

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49
Q

Water vapor, CO2, and methane are all examples of what type of gas?

A

greenhouse gases

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50
Q

What are reactions reactions to climate change caused by forcings called?

A

feedbacks

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51
Q

Do “positive” and “negative” mean good or bad in the context of feedbacks?

A

No, the positive and negative refer to the relationship of the forcing and its feedback

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52
Q

What is a positive feedback?

A

a feedback that pushes the direction of the climate warmer or colder

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53
Q

What is a negative feedback?

A

a feedback that moves climate change closer to the starting point, moderating the climate

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54
Q

What type of feedback is the melting of the ice sheets in the Arctic?

A

a positive feedback, because when they melt, the climate gets warmer, and more melts; it is a cycle

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55
Q

Positive feedbacks can push climate change to what point?

A

a tipping point

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56
Q

How does the loss of ice affect the climate? (in the natural world)

A

it warms it, because usually, the sunlight would reflect off of it, but now it doesn’t have anything to reflect off of

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57
Q

What is the polar vortex?

A

cold air that circulates the North Pole

58
Q

How does the weakening of the polar vortex affect us?

A

it causes it to move down, making our climate cooler

59
Q

What is an archive?

A

a collection of physical documents

60
Q

How high above Earth is the exosphere found?

A

800 to 3,000 km

61
Q

How high above Earth is the thermosphere found?

A

80 to 800 km

62
Q

How high above Earth is the mesosphere found?

A

50 to 80 km

63
Q

How high above Earth is the stratosphere found?

A

11 to 50 km

64
Q

How high above Earth is the troposphere found?

A

0 to 12-18 km

65
Q

What is a proxy?

A

something observable in nature that gives an indication of past climates

66
Q

What are the 3 most revealing sources of climate history?

A

ice, trees, and soil

67
Q

What is ice core sampling?

A

a technique of drilling long cylinders of ice out of deep glaciers

68
Q

What are ice cores?

A

very long ice cylinders found in deep glaciers

69
Q

The ice cores that were sampled are analyzed in ____________.

A

layers

70
Q

How does an ice core reveal previous climate conditions?

A

as the snowfall fell, it would trap particles from the atmosphere and freeze them in the ice

71
Q

How can one identify the age of a tree?

A

by counting the rings of a tree that has been cut through

72
Q

What is dendrochronology?

A

the practice of gathering information from trees and dating their rings

73
Q

Dendrochronology is a combination of words that refer to what?

A

trees and time

74
Q

What information do layers of sediment and mud on the bottom of lakes and oceans contain?

A

the historical composition and content of water

75
Q

What reveals similar data as the layers of sediment found on the seafloor?

A

coral sampling

76
Q

What information does coral sampling reveal?

A

past temperatures of the ocean and the composition/content of the water

77
Q

What does the term archives of society refer to?

A

documents produced by humans that contain information about the climate

78
Q

When do the oldest instrumental records of temperature date back to?

A

the invention of the thermometer around 1700

79
Q

When was the thermometer invented?

A

around 1700

80
Q

How long do human records of climate date back?

A

hundreds or thousands of years

81
Q

Are archives of society or archives of nature more specific at dating occurrences in nature?

A

archives of society, as human records can give details about the day or hour something happened

81
Q

When did Phoenix, AZ receive record-breaking heat?

A

the summer of 2023

82
Q

When do temperature records for the city of Phoenix, AZ date back to?

A

1896

83
Q

How have grain prices been used as proxies?

A

there is a correlation between weather and the harvests, a good harvest means more is produced and prices go down

84
Q

What is a scholarly field?

A

a group of scholars who share common methods of studying the evidence they analyze

85
Q

What are the 4 main scholarly fields relating to climate history?

A

historical climatology, paleoclimatology, climate history, and history of climate and society (HCS)

86
Q

How similar are historical climatology and paleoclimatology?

A

they are basically the same field with different names

87
Q

What is climatology?

A

a study of climate that relies primarily on the archives of nature

88
Q

Climatologists are experts at what>

A

gathering information about the climate from the natural world

89
Q

What does paleo- mean?

A

ancient or old

90
Q

Historical climatology and paleoclimatology investigate past climates, typically before when?

A

the 1800s

91
Q

Historical climatologists must practice which skills?

A
  1. collecting samples from nature
  2. operating instruments used to analyze samples
  3. analyzing found data
  4. communicating findings
92
Q

Where do climate historians get their data from?

A

the archives of society

93
Q

Who was Christian Pfister?

A

a Swiss historian who was a pioneer in the field of climate history, compiled sources and made approaches to analyze them

94
Q

Christian Pfister is from which country?

A

Switzerland

95
Q

How is a climate historian different than a historical climatologist?

A

they look in different places to find information

96
Q

What does “b2k” mean?

A

before the year 2000

97
Q

What does ka mean?

A

thousands of years before present

98
Q

What does Ma mean?

A

millions of years before present

99
Q

What does HCS stand for?

A

History of Climate and Society

100
Q

How old is HCS?

A

it is a new field just beginning to emerge

101
Q

Who has led the push for HCS?

A

environmental historian Dagomar Degroot

102
Q

What is the focus of HCS?

A

the relationship between climate conditions and human societies

103
Q

What do HCS scholars say about research from other fields when it comes to studying the relationship between climate and society?

A

it is often not that precise

104
Q

What does HCS do to “casual claims”?

A

it scrutinizes them and makes sure there is sufficient evidence to back up claims

105
Q

HCS emphasizes the importance of precision when it comes to _________.

A

scale

106
Q

What scale types are important for the study of climate history and its relationship to human life?

A

chronological scale and geographical scale

107
Q

What is the primary cause of global warming?

A

the releasing of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere

108
Q

What does Anthro- from Anthropocene mean?

A

human

109
Q

What does -cene from Anthropocene mean?

A

it references periods of time within the Cenozoic era

110
Q

What does the Anthropocene put a large emphasis on?

A

human-caused changes, specifically changes in climate

111
Q

What epoch are we currently in?

A

the Holocene

112
Q

When did the Holocene begin?

A

11,700 years ago

113
Q

The Holocene began after what?

A

the first global ice age

114
Q

When did the Pleistocene start?

A

2.58 million years ago

115
Q

Has the term Anthropocene been officially adopted as our current era?

A

No, and there is still a lot of debate as it is a very big decision

116
Q

What does AWG stand for?

A

Anthropocene Working Group

117
Q

What group in 2019 declared that the term Anthropocene should be officially recognized?

A

the AWG

118
Q

When did the AWG announce that they support the Anthropocene as the new geological time period?

A

2019

119
Q

When did the Holocene end, according to the AWG?

A

around 1950

120
Q

Was the proposal of the term Anthropocene accepted or rejected?

A

it was rejected in March of 2024 by the International Union of Geological Sciences

121
Q

Which group rejected the term Anthropocene?

A

the International Union of Geological Sciences

122
Q

When did the International Union of Geological Sciences reject the Anthropocene?

A

March of 2024

123
Q

Will the Anthropocene still be used?

A

Yes, although it was formally rejected, it is still commonly used among professionals

124
Q

Humans have been telling narratives about global history for how long?

A

millions of years

125
Q

How long have professional historians been telling narratives about global history?

A

Since the 1800s, when the modern historical profession became formalized in Europe

126
Q

Modern historians did not include climate in their narratives about global history until when?

A

2000

127
Q

Scholars who use key historical moments and find out whether any climate events coincided will find what?

A

a striking correlation between large-scale social events and climate-related conditions

128
Q

Is there usually enough evidence to prove a cause-effect between climate and social conditions?

A

No, there typically isn’t enough evidence to support such claims

129
Q

What cases did older scholars make about climate and human history?

A

that climate determined the course of human history

130
Q

What has the argument for the claim climate sets the course for human history been labeled?

A

climate determinism

131
Q

Do studies today reject or support climate determinism?

A

reject

132
Q

What is a casual mechanism?

A

something that causes another thing to happen

133
Q

How long does the chronological scale of human history typically date back to?

A

5,000 or 6,000 years ago

134
Q

5 or 6 thousand years ago are when what first emerged?

A

the first societies

135
Q

What is the current state of climate caused by?

A

human behavior

136
Q

Who wrote “Silent Spring”?

A

Rachel Carson

137
Q

What is “Silent Spring” often credited with?

A

helping humans develop an awareness of how much we can alter the Earth

138
Q

What did humans do during the Pleistocene era?

A

the migrated around the world

139
Q

When was “Silent Spring” released?

A

1962

Social Science Pentathlon 24-25 (6 decks)

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