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