Social Science 5-15

I hope these are some good flash cards :3

How long did Humans live during the Ice Age at the end of the Pleistocene?

100,000 years

What is the cause of climate change in the modern day?

The burning of Fossil Fuels

What is the fundamental questions of our lifetimes?

Whether or not we will stop burning fossil. fuels in time to keep the climate from changing much more than it already has.

How do scholars and the public use the term "climate change?"

a complex process of changes in the natural world

What does ESS stand for?

Earth System Science

How does ESS view the Earth?

views the Earth's land, oceans, and atmosphere as a single system

Does ESS look at the interactions between air, water, land and living organisms?

yes, ESS does

What is a multidisciplinary approach to using knowledge?

which incorporates the findings of more than one academic discipline, offers a well rounded picture of the history of climate change.

What is the idea of Anthropocene?

a new geological era in planetary history in which humans have become the driving force in planetary change.

What does the term Anthropocene reference?

the idea that current climatic conditions have been heavily influenced by human actions

When have the scholars theorized that the world has entered a new era of climate history?

1950

What does section 1 conclude with a reflection of what?

how climate change and its history relate to the ways that scholars have traditionally told the story of global history.

What are the layers of the atmosphere?

Troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere, and the exosphere

What is the order of the layers of the earth's atmosphere?

Troposphere, Stratosphere, Mesosphere, Thermosphere, and the Exosphere. The furthest to the left is the closest to earth and the right is the farthest away

What are some facts about the Troposphere?

Hot air balloons and passenger planes can be seen here. the average temperature is around 15 to -56.5ºC. The height is from 0 Km to 12-18 Km.

What are some facts about the Stratosphere?

Radiosonde can be found here. The average temperature is around -56.5 to -2.5ºC. The height is from 11 to 50 Km.

What are some facts about the Mesosphere?

Meteors and Meteorological rockets can be found here. The average temperature is around -2.5 to -86.5ºC. The height is from 40-50 to 80-90 Km.

What are some cool facts about the Thermosphere?

Aurora's can be found here. The average temperature is around -86.5 to 1200ºC. The height is from 80-90 to 800 Km

What are some cool facts about the Exosphere?

Spaceships and Satellite's can be found here. The average temperature is 1200ºC. The height is from 800 to 3000 Km

What is a cool acronym for remembering the layers of Earth's atmosphere?

Thy (Troposphere) Strap (stratosphere) Must (Mesosphere) Think (Thermosphere) Extirpate (Exosphere)

What does the Basics of ESS provide?

an easy-to-understand way for non-specialists to obtain an accurate, if simplified, picture of how climate works.

What are the parts in the single system the ESS use called?

subsystems

What are the 4 subsystems called?

geosphere (earth and rock), hydrosphere (water and ice), atmosphere (air), and biosphere (living organisms)

What are the forces used to to balance the subsystems and the stability of the weather and climate called?

Forcings

What is the name of the reactions when a forcings alter the climate callted?

positive feedbacks or negative feedbacks

What does the term lithosphere mean?

a word that incorporates the greek word for rock or stone, to describe the same features encompassed by the term geosphere.

What are some notable events in climate history?

the shifting of the earths plates and the release and recapture of minerals and particles from within the earth.

What are some examples of the geosphere impacting the earth?

The geosphere also impacts weather and climate,

as occurs in locations where mountain ranges cause

clouds to form. The eruptions of volcanoes that release

gases and particles from within the Earth also drive

climate change.

What is the subsystem for ice called?

Cryosphere

What is the one important role the atmosphere plays in climate change?

the greenhouse gas effect on the world

How does greenhouse gas capture heat?

Certain gases in the atmosphere cause the greenhouse gas

effect because they are transparent to the Sun's rays,

allowing them to the reach the surface. When those

rays are re-radiated by the Earth back into space, they

lose energy and drop to the infrared level. But at that

level, the greenhouse gases absorb them, thus trapping

the heat.

What is the gas released from Fossil Fuels humans use?

Carbon dioxide

What is a cycle most people know?

the carbon cycle

What type of system is the earth's climate system called?

an open system

What does a open system mean?

this mean that it is not entirely self-contained. An example, Solar energy radiated from the Sun is the Earth's vital source of external energy.

What do scientists call the specific causes of climate change?

forcings

What are the three particularly influential forcings mentioned by scientists?

solar energy, volcanoes, and greenhouse gases.

What is an example of the sun not being consistent with its energy transfer to Earth?

For example, climatologists have identified that cooler temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere in the late 1600s and early 1700s corresponded to a period of fewer sunspots and

low solar activity.

What are the Milankovitch cycles?

The Milankovitch cycles reflect the fact that at intervals of around 100,000 years, 41,000 years, and 26,000 years, the Earth

completes different cycles that influence which parts

of the Earth receive more, or less, solar energy. These

three cycles have interacted with each other to steer the

climate of the Earth into and out of periodic ice ages.

When can volcanoes create a cool shade?

When large volcanoes erupt, they emit a layer of dust and particles that can offer shade cover to large areas of the globe, creating cooler conditions over vast regions.

What does the term Greenhouse gases mean?

The term "greenhouse gases" refers to the design of

buildings called greenhouses that capture heat from

the Sun and are commonly used for agriculture.

Where has the public most likely have experienced this type of heating from?

The public probably has experienced this heating

dynamic more frequently in automobiles that are very

hot on the inside after being parked in the sun with

the windows up.

How does car heating occur?

This occurs when solar radiation

enters through the glass windows and warms up the

interior surfaces of the car, such as the dashboard.

What can windows do with heat?

The windows also trap the heat that radiates off the

dashboard and other surfaces within the car, creating

a warming effect inside the entire car.

What are some gases that produce the greenhouse effect around the surface of the earth?

Water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane are some of the gases that produce a greenhouse effect around the surface of

the Earth.

What are reactions to forcings called?

Feedbacks

What is one example of a feedback?

One is the melting of sheets of ice around the North Pole. Forcings that have caused climatic warming in the Northern Hemisphere have resulted in this melting ice.

How does the designation of positive and negative refer to when talking about forcings and feedbacks?

The designation of positive or negative refers to the relationship between the original forcing and the impact of the

feedback.

What counts as a positive?

If the original forcing and the feedback both

push the climate in the same direction, either both

warmer or both colder, then the feedback is positive.

What is an example of a positive feedback?

So, melting polar ice sheets is a positive feedback

because warming caused the ice to melt, and losing

the ice further warms the climate.

What do positive feedbacks do to the climate?

Positive feedbacks, therefore, keep pushing climate change in the direction it is headed, either warmer or colder.

What is a tipping point and can a positive feedback push climate change to a tipping point?

A tipping point is when the time the change reaches a point of no return (ie no fixing at that point your screwed Lmao). Yep positive feedbacks can, as they are used to show that climate change is worsening.

What is negative feedbacks?

negative feedbacks are the opposite of positive feedbacks and are served to moderate climate change.

What is an example of negative feedback?

A smaller-scale negative feedback occasionally occurs during

the winter season in the Great Lakes region in

North America. Warmer conditions raise the water

temperature of the Great Lakes, increasing water in

the atmosphere. The increased water in the air over

the lakes, in turn, becomes cloud cover that cools

the surface of the Earth by blocking the sunlight.

What do lake effect snowstorms do?

They create a layer of snow on the ground that, like ice, serves to reflect solar energy away from the surface of the Earth.

What does the weakening of the polar vortex do?

Scientists hypothesize that warmer

temperatures in the oceans and atmosphere of the

Northern Hemisphere have weakened the polar vortex

of cold air that circulates around the North Pole. As

warmer air moves upward, the cold air in the polar

vortex moves out of its usual course and travels

farther south into areas of the United States that it

had not previously reached. In those places, winter

temperatures drop well below regular levels.