Social Sciences Section 1 Flashcards
Conceptualizing Climate Change in the Past and Present
What is the Pleistocene?
A geological epoch that started around 2.58 million years ago and was characterized by cycles of ice ages and interglacials
What is the Holocene?
A geological interglacial (warm) period that began around 11,700 years ago, at the end of the last ice age
What is the Anthropocene?
A proposed new epoch starting from 1950, based on unprecedented human-driven climate change.
What is Earth System Science (ESS)?
A new approaching to studying the world, based on the interaction between the major four subsystems:
Geosphere, Hydrosphere, Atmosphere, Biosphere.
What is the Geosphere (Lithosphere)?
One of the subsystems of ESS; the earth and rock that comprise the Earth
Earth System Science
What is the Hydrosphere?
One of the subsystems in ESS; all the water in, on, and around the Earth in various forms
Earth System Science
What is the Biosphere
One of the subsystems in ESS; all living organisms in and on the Earth
Earth System Science
What is the Atmosphere?
One of the subsystems in ESS; the layers of gases encircling the Earth
Earth System Science
What is a Geological Time Scale?
Measure of time based on the record of rocks in which change is sometimes
measured at the pace of millions or even billions of years
In contrast to the human scale of decades. Climate change has brought these scales together—changes that should be on geological time scales are now happening in our lifetimes.
What is the Cryosphere?
Part of the hydrosphere; all ice on Earth
Earth System Science
What is the Greenhouse Gas Effect?
Higher concentrations of gases (CO2, methane, water vapor) that trap heat and warm the planet’s surface
Forcing
What are Forcings?
Factors that are external to the climate system and influence climate change
Volcanoes, Solar Energy, Greenhouse Gases
What are Milankovitch cycles?
Patterns of the Earth’s movement in relation to the sun, at intervals of 100,000, 41,000, and 26,000 years resulting in ice ages when they line up.
Forcings—Solar Energy
What are Positive Feedbacks?
In ESS, a phenomenon where climate change causes a natural reaction that increases climate change in the same way.
Melting Ice
What are Negative Feedbacks?
In ESS, a phenomenon where climate change causes a natural reaction that acts against the original direction of the climate change.
Polar Vortex, Great Lakes Lake-Effect
What is a Tipping point?
A point of no return where climate change becomes irreversible
What is a Proxy?
Something that indicates past climate conditions, e.g. ice cores or human records
What is a Scholarly Field?
A group of scholars sharing the same object of study, type of evidence to study it, and methods for analyzing evidence.
What is Historical climatology (Paleoclimatology)?
A scholarly field that reconstructs past climates using sources found in nature
Archives of Nature
What is Climate History?
A scholarly field that uses historical human records to construct climate conditions in the recent past
Archives of Society
What is the History of Climate and Society (HCS)?
An interdisciplinary scholarly field, suggested by historian Dagomar Degroot, which focuses on the relationship between climate and human history
Archives of Society AND Nature
What is Climate Determinism?
The argument that climate determined social conditions throughout human history
Almost all studies today REJECT this theory.
What is a Causal Mechanism?
Something that causes something else to occur
What scholarly field did Dan Pfister pioneer?
Climate History
Is the weakening of the Polar Vortex a positive or negative feedback?
Negative
Warming has caused the Polar Vortex to weaken, which has led to cold air escaping the vortex and cooling North America.
When was the Anthropocene proposed?
2019
The Anthropocene Working Group voted to adopt it in May 2019. It was later rejected by the International Union of Geological Sciences in March 2024.
When was the Anthropocene rejected?
March 2024
The International Union of Geological Sciences rejected the term due to the lack of data signifying 1950 as an epochal shift in the Earth system.
What are all the examples of proxies in nature?
Dendrochronology, ice cores, coral sampling, waterbed sedimentation
Archives of Nature
Traces in nature of the past climate.
What are Archives of Nature?
Clues found in nature of the past climate
What are Archives of Society?
Clues in human history of the past climate
What are Instrumental Records?
Precise and accurate weather records, that only go back a few centuries.
Archive of Society
What are Narrative Records?
Human-produced records such as diaries, logbooks, etc. that describe the weather. Not precise temperatures, but give a general idea of the climate at the time.
Archives of Society
Highwater marks / Works of art / Grain Prices are all potential examples of what?
Archives of Society
human records/proxies
Archives of Society
Ongoing debate on whether it is valid to use grain prices as proxies, due to other potential factors
Why do some argue for the adoption of the term ‘Anthropocene’?
There is overwhelming evidence that warming trends began around 1950, with the advent of the Great Acceleration. The term also highlights human involvement in the changing climate.
What is the significance of Rachel Carson’s novel, Silent Spring?
It brought awareness to humanity’s potential to alter the Earth—demonstrating how commercial pesticides transformed ecosystems over years instead of generations.
The book was published in 1962
