SS Section 1 Flashcards
Pleistocene era
An ice age that ended 11,700 years ago.
What did humans do during the Pleistocene era
They migrated around the world
When did the era of human growth begin
less than 12,000 years ago
Did our ancestors have control over their changing climate
No
What is causing the current climate change
Burning fossil fuels
Earth system science or ESS
An approach to study the natural worlds that looks at the Earth’s land, oceans, and atmosphere as a single system
How new is ESS
ESS is relatively new field
Troposphere
The layer of the atmosphere that is closest to the earth
Troposphere height
0km to 12km-18km
Troposphere Temp.
15C to -56.5C
Stratosphere height
11km to 50km
Stratosphere temp
-56.5C to -2.5C
Mesosphere
The layer of the atmosphere that is the third farthest away from Earth
Mesosphere height
40-50km to 80-90km
Mesosphere temp
-2.5C to -86.5C
Thermosphere
The second farthest layer of the atmosphere from earth
Thermosphere height
80-90km to 800km
Thermosphere temp
-86.5C to 1200C
Exosphere
The farthest layer of the atmosphere from Earth
Exosphere height
800km to 3000km
Exosphere temp
1200C
Subsystems
The different parts of ESS
Geosphere
Earth and rock
Hydrosphere
water and ice
atmosphere
air
biosphere
living organisms
What can the subsystems do
They can interact to shape the weather and climate
Forcings
External forces that can alter the stability of the weather and climate
Negative and Positive Feedbacks
Reactions from forcings
Scale
The size on which something is happening
Lithosphere
Synonym for geosphere
Geological Time scale
A time period which can take millions to billions of years
What can happen if a large volcano erupts
A time of short cooling can occur. If the volcano is big enough the cooling might be felt on a global scale.
What do mountain ranges cause
They cause rain to form
Cryosphere
A subsystem used by some scholars that includes only ice.
Climate Change in the hydrosphere
The polar ice caps are melting, is one of the most focused on effects of climate change
Layer of atmosphere from lowest to highest
Troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere, exosphere
Greenhouse effect
occurs when gasses in the atmosphere trap heat in the atmosphere
Is the greenhouse effect good
Yes, but only in moderation. Not like the greenhouse effect we are receiving today
What can cause the Greenhouse effect to increase
To many greenhouse gases in the atmosphere
Earth’s Climate System
The different parts that combine to shape the climate around the globe
What is a vital source of external energy for the earth
Solar energy
Three influenctial forcings are
solar energy, volcanos, greenhouse gases
Solar Energy
Energy form the sun that heats up the earth
The amount of energy transferred from the Sun to the Earth is not completely consistent over ____ and ____
time and space
A period of lower sun temps. and fewer sunspots relates to
cool temps. in the North Hemisphere during early 1600s and late 1700s
What has been a driver of climate change for hundreds of thousands of years
the earth’s movement and its relation to the sun
Milankovitch cycle intervals
26,000, 41,000, and 100,000 years
What can happen with back to back volcanic eruptions
The cooling effect of the ahs and debris will be felt over a larger area or even on a global scale
What are some of the gases that contribute to the greenhouse effect
Water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane
What happens when forcings begin to change the climate
The four subsystems are impacted in different ways
What is an example of an feedback
the melting of sheets of ice in the North Pole
Why are the sheets of ice melting in the north pole
this is due to a forcing
What happens to some solar radiations
It is reflected by the Earth and its atmosphere
What happens to most solar radiation
It is absorbed by the Earths surface and also warms it
What happens to infrared radiation that is effect by the greenhouse gases
It passes through the atmosphere. Some gets absorbed and re-emitted in all direction by greenhouse gases
What happens when infrared radiation is effected by greenhouse gases
It heats up the Earth’s surface and lower atmosphere
Does the Earth’s surface emit infrared radiation
Yes
What does a positive feedback mean
It means a reaction from a forcing that pushes the environment the same direction that climate change is pushing
What does a negative feedback mean
It means that a reaction from a forcing pushed the opposite direction from which climate change was originally pushing it
Tipping point
A point at which the climate cannot be saved
Archive
Evidence of past events typically a write n document
Archives of Society
Climate conditions that have been recorded by humans
Archives of Nature
Climate conditions that have been recorded in nature.
Example of an Archive of Nature3
A plant growing more because there i s more of a certain gas in the atmosphere
Proxy
Something observable in nature that gives an indication of past climate conditions
What are three of the most reveling sources of climate history
ice, trees, and soil
Ice Core Sampling
Drilling long cylinders of ice out of deep glaciers to be analyzed for climate conditions
Why does Ice core sampling work
Snow fall traps particle from the atmosphere then becomes ice. So we can analyze the ice for these particles
How can Trees be analyzed for climate conditions
Scientist can observe the rings for the climate condition of that time
Why does analyzing a tree work
It works because a tree’s rings change slightly when the weather/climate changes.
Sedimentation
The layers of sediment or mud on the bottom of lakes
and the ocean contain information about the water
Coral Sampling
Reveals past composition and temperatures of oceans
Example of Narrative records
Ship logbook
What is an other type of record
A painting
What is the problem with paintings
they aren’t always reliable
Scholarly field
A group of scholars who study evidence in the same way
Witch fields offer complementary view of climate history
historical climatology, paleoclimatology, climate history, and the history of climate and society
Which two fields are the same thing but with different names
Historical Climatology and Paleoclimatology
What do the fields of historical climat5ology and paleoclimatology study
they study the climates of the past, usually before the 1800s
What are some skills that historical climatology and paleoclimatology use
Collecting samples from nature, operating machinery or instruments to analyze samples, and analyzing data obtained from nature
What do climate historians do
they collect and study sources from the archives of society
What are skills that climate historians need
Being able to read the language of the text, ability to find text, analytical techniques, and the contextual knowledge to interpret these texts accurately
Who was an influential pioneer in climate history
Christian Pfister
When was Christian Pfister born
1944
Is the History of Climate (HCS) and Society an old field
no
Who is leading the push to form and name HCS
Dagomar Degroot
What does HCS do
They try and see how climate has impacted the human society
What does scale mean in context to HCS
the area of ones investigation
What does HCS emphasize
it emphasizes the importance of scale
What is the primary cause of current global warming
humans releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere
Anthropcene
It is a term that emphasizes the fact that humans are to be responsible for this change in climate
What does “Anthro” mean
human
Why would the adoption of the term Anthropocene be so major
It would say that we have left the stable and relatively peaceful Holocene
Why are scientists hesitant to adopt the term Anthropocene
They don’t know if we have enough evidence to justify the change in period
Why is combining human and climate history so hard
This is because it is hard to determine if one event happened because of another event or if they happen coincidentally
Climate determinism
Climate sets the course for human history
What is the challenge with scales for combining human and climate history
The history of human kind is like blink in the massive scale of climate history
Rachel Carson
The person credited with humans see how much we can alter the Earth
Silent Spring
The book that helped humans realize how much they could impact the Earth
What is a challenge that comes with the Anthropocene
It is so new that we have to start changing old narratives and methods to account for the changing of the Holocene
How do eruptions of a volcano affect the environment
The ash and debris block the sunlight
How powerful are the Milankovitch cycles
They can pull Earth in and out of ice ages
What does the term greenhouse gases refer to
Greenhouses, a building that traps heat form the sun and are used for agriculture.
Milankovitch cycle
A cycle that determines when the earth will get more or less sunlight
Stratosphere
The second closest layer of the atmosphere from earth
