APES - Unit 13 - Climate Change

Anthropogenic

Human-induced changes on the natural environment

greenhouse effect

Natural situation in which heat is retained in Earth's atmosphere by carbon dioxide, methane, water vapor, and other gases

Global Warming Potential (GWP)

a number that represents the relative contribution of a molecule of the atmospheric gas to global warming

Albedo

Ability of a surface to reflect light

atmosphere

A mixture of gases that surrounds a planet or moon.

Troposphere

The lowest layer of Earth's atmosphere

Stratosphere

2nd layer of atmosphere; extends from 10 to 30 miles up; location of ozone layer; absorbs 95% of Ultraviolet radiation; temperature increases with altitude increase.

Mesosphere

The layer of Earth's atmosphere immediately above the stratosphere

Thermosphere

The uppermost layer of the atmosphere, in which temperature increases as altitude increases

Exosphere

The outer layer of the thermosphere, extending outward into space.

greenhouse gases

Gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, water vapor, and ozone in the atmosphere which are involved in the greenhouse effect.

glacial periods and interglacial periods

glacial is when glaicers advance in an ice age and interglagical is when they recede

icecore

A long cylinder of ice obtained from drilling through ice caps or ice sheets; used to study past climates.

Milankovitch cycles

Changes in the shape earth's orbit and tilt that cause glacial periods and interglacial periods that affect the amount of global solar radiation received:

Great Ocean Conveyor Belt

a constantly moving system of deep-ocean circulation driven by temperature and salinity

El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO)

A reversal of wind and water currents in the South Pacific

IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)

group created in 1988 by the UN and the World Meteorological Organization, consisting of over 3,000 scientists from the around the world working together to assess climate change

coral bleaching

A phenomenon in which algae inside corals die, causing the corals to turn white.

Atmosphere Circulation

a global movement of air that transports heat ad moisture and explains the climates of different regions.

sea level rise

one result of global climate change, due to melting glaciers and ice caps

Carbon sinks/reservoirs

Anything that absorbs more carbon than it releases; examples: forests, soils, oceans and the atmosphere

Carbon sequestration (storage)

The act of removing carbon from the atmosphere and storing it. Plants sequester, or store carbon from the atmosphere.

carbon tax

a fee that the government charges polluters for each unit of greenhouse gas they emit

Geoengineering

Manipulation of earths climate system to counteract the effects of climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions.

cap-and-trade

Mechanism to reduce the emission of pollutants by establishing a market for emission permits.