Topic 2: Changing Climate (Paper 1)

Question 1

What is climate change?

Answer 1

Climate change is a large-scale, long-term shift in the planet’s weather patterns or average temperature. Earth has had tropical climates and ice ages many times in its 4.5 billion years.

Question 2

What is the quaternary period?

Answer 2

• The quaternary period is the last 2.6 million years. During this period, temperatures have always fluctuated. The cold ‘spikes’ are glacial periods, wheras the warm points are the interglacial periods.
• Today’s temperature is higher than the rest of the period. Despite alternate cold and warm moments within this period, global temperatures have increased above average in the past 100 years. The current trend is what’s become known as global warming

Question 3

How does geoglogical fossil evidence prove climate change?

Answer 3

Plants and animals fossils/remains which favour certain envrionment conditions, thus suggesting periods of warmer and colder time (e.g. Mastodon in the USA)

Question 4

How does ocean sediment prove climate change?

Answer 4

Layers of sediment that has built up over time have provided scientist trapped oxygen isotopes. Scientists have used them to calculate and understand that that atmospheric temperature have indeed changed

Question 5

How do ice cores prove climate change?

Answer 5

Ice cores are made up from different layers that ecah represents different historical times. By eploring water molecules of these cores, scientists have calculated fluctuating temperatures of the atmosphere.

Question 6

How do historical records prove climate change?

Answer 6

Historical records from ancient cave paintings, diaries and written observations have provided evidence of climate change though personal accounts form the people through them.

Question 7

How does global temperature data prove climate change (recent)?

Answer 7

Evidence collected by NASA suggests average global temperatures have increased by more than 0.6°C since 1950.

Question 8

How do ice sheets and glaciers prove climate change?

Answer 8

Evidence from maps and photos have shown many of the world’s glaciers and ice sheets are melting (e.g. the Arctic sea has declined by 10% in 30 years

Question 9

How does sea level change prove climate change?

Answer 9

Evidende from the IPCC has shown that the average global sea level has risen by 10-20cm in the past 100 years. This is due to the additional water from fresh water ice and thermal expansion of the ocean due to higher temperatures.

Question 10

What is the natural greenhouse effect?

Answer 10

The Earth is kept warn by a natural prcess called the Greenhouse effect. As solar radiation heats the Earth, some is reflected back into space. However, greehouse gas help trap the sun’s raditation. Without this process, the Earth would be too cold to support life as temperature would average as -18°C instead of 15°C