Climate Change Final Spring 2022

If you move from Texas to Oklahoma along the arrow, what changes?

Latitude

Which of the following describes both climate and weather accurately?

Climate is used for long term decisions like whete to build a ski resort, and weather is for short term decisions like if you should bring sn umbrella to school.

If you are a policymaker (I.e., non-expert), where would you go to find out what the scientific community thinks about a relevant scientific issue?

Read a scientific assessment

How much has the Earth warmed over the last 120 years? Answer in degrees Celsius.

0.9 and 1.3

Some people dispute the surface thermometer record because the days going into the record are adjusted to account for known issues in the data. Which of the following is true?

The adjustments have little impact on the global average temperature record

Over the past 100 years, what part of the globe is warming fastest?

Northern hemisphere

LGM stands for "last glacial maximum" — the coldest point of the last ice age. When did that occur?

20,000 years ago

How much colder was it during the coldest part of the last ice age then today? Answer I'm degrees Celsius.

Between 4 and 7

As described in Chapter 1, what is the three-step process that science goes through to generate scientific facts. Answer in a few sentences.

Scientific Method (individual scientists generating and testing hypotheses and reaching conclusions about them)

-Peer Review (Scientist writes up details of the experiment and submits it to a journal where it undergoes peer review. This means the paper is evaluated by other experts in field , if they don't spot any problems the paper is published in the peer review literature)

-Crucible of science (important conclusions are then retested by the scientific community)

Why are we so confident that the earth is presently warming? What word does the IPCC use to describe our confidence in the warming?

— surface thermometers measurements (most important)

— satellites measurements

— loss of ice (sea ice, glaciers, ice sheets)

— ocean heat content

— sea level rise

Where does 2022 rank among the hottest years of the surface thermometer record? [this was discussed in the TWIC video]

6th

What photons are visible to humans? Enter a wavelength (in microns) in the middle of the visible range.

Between 0.3 and 0.8

A watt is equal to:

Joule per second

In our climate calculations, we generally assume that the atmosphere (mark all that are correct):

— Emits radiation both up and down equally

— Absorbs all incident infrared radiation

To estimate the amount of solar radiation falling on the Earth, what did we do?

Estimate the energy falling into the shadow the Earth would cast on a screen set up behind it

How much of the increase in atmospheric CO2 between pre-industrial and today is due to human activities like fossil fuel combustion and land-use changes?

Virtually all of it

The most important greenhouse gas in our atmosphere is

Water vapor

How much carbon dioxide was in the atmosphere during pre-industrial times (1750)?

Between 250-290

In the TWIC video, we talked about the Trump Administration rolling back regulations on what?

Incandescent lightbulbs

Radiative forcing equal to :

The change in E in minus E out before temperature has adjusted

Large volcanic eruptions can cause aerosols to be formed in the stratosphere, leading to what climatic response?

The climate experiences cooling that lasts several years

Imagine you release a slug of CO2 to the atmosphere; how long does it take for this fully warm the planet?

Millennia

Climate change is initiated by radiative forcing and amplified by feedbacks.

Radiative forcing

Feedback

A warmer climate leads to drier soils and more dust in the air. This dust reflects sunlight back to space. That is a:

Negative feedback

Over what time scale does the Earth's orbit vary?

Tens of thousands of years

During the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), why did the elevated levels of atmospheric carbon last for about 100,000 years before stabilizing?

Because 100,000 years is the amount of time it takes for the carbon cycle to remove carbon from the atmosphere

The Milankovitch cycles were named after a Milutin Milankovitch who recognized that the ice-age cycles corresponded to variations in what natural mechanism?

Orbital variation

What factors play a role in driving ice age cycles? [mark all that apply]

— Changes in carbon dioxide

— Orbital variations

During the PETM, what happened? [mark all that apply]

— an enormous amount of greenhouse gases were released

— the climate warmed

— the oceans became more acidic

List the potential suspects we identified in chapter 7 for the modern warming. Identify which one(s) we can be confident are contributing to the warming. For the ones that we have decided are not contributing, explain in a few words why we think that.

Continental Drift

Orbital variations

Variations in the sun

Unforced variabilities

Greenhouse gases

In the last TWIC video, what did Prof. D say he would ask you about?

The new IPCC report

Which term(s) of the IPAT relation have increased more-or-less continuously over the past few decades? (You can select multiple answers)

— Affluence

— population

If we switch from coal to nuclear, what happens?

Carbon intensity decreases

Order the energy sources from highest to lowest carbon intensity

Coal

Natural gas

Nuclear

The emissions scenario that we discussed with the least amount of warming in 2100 is:

SSP1-26

About how much warming do we expect over the 21st century? Answer with the middle of the range of predicted future climates.

3.0°C

Temperature is predicted to

Increase everywhere

Why does a warming climate lead to increases in sea level ?

— melting of grounded ice adds water to the ocean

— warming of the ocean leads to thermal expansion

In the chapter 9 reading, the argument is made that modern warming is large by comparing it to what warming event?

Warming since the last ice age

How do we know that a warmer climate will not be a better climate?

We are adapted to our present climate

For each term of the IPAT relation, has it increased, stayed roughly constant, or decreased over the past 60 years:

Population — increased

Affluence — increased

Energy intensity — decreased

Carbon intensity — decreased

Emissions — increased

In the TWIC. Idea, what did Prof. D talk about that he said you should remember for the quiz?

The temperature in Antarctica

Your friend says: "a few degrees of warming predicted for this coming century doesn't sound like much." What example of previous climate change do you tell him about and how does their event demonstrate that the predicted warming could literally remake the surface of the planet?

We refer to the previous ice age and why the few degrees warming will be so terrible. If we warm 3-4°C, that's a good fraction of the warming since the last ice age. The last ice age was a completely different planet, so if we change the climate by a few degrees this century, we will remake the surface of the planet. This is bad because we have adapted to our present climate.

A corporation has the option to settle a debt by paying $7,000 today or $10,000 in 10 years? What should it do?

Not enough information given

In chapter 10, the discount rate was denied to be

The rate at which money loses value as it recedes into the future

What is exponential growth?

The rate of growth is proportional to the amount

Which of the following energy sources does the book suggest will ultimately be most important for our society in solving climate change?

The most important component of any climate policy is

Which of the following is a reason that mitigation is a 'tough sell' politically?

A carbon tax works because

Company A is the leading producer of household cleaning products in America, and Company B is a new company that produces non toxic cleaning products houses in reusable containers. The product from company A costs $12, but has a negative externality of $5, while the product from Company B costs $16, and has zero externality costs. What can be said about the costs of these two products?

Given a carbon tax, how much will an emitter reduce emissions?

Until the marginal cost of reducing one more unit of emissions is equal to the tax on the unit

In the TWIC video, Prof. D talked about the recently released report from the IPCC. Which IPCC report just came iut?

Working group. 3