Weather and Climate Studies (Chapter 1)

Climate

Complex system consisting of the atmosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, biosphere and interactions between them

System

Portion of the universe with fixed or moveable boundaries which may contain matter, energy or both

How does the climate system evolve?

Due to internal dynamics and external forcings (volcanic eruptions, solar variations) and human actions (land use)

What can cause a climate shift?

Unbalanced incoming and outgoing radiation

How do we know that Earth is not in global radiative equilibrium?

The system is gaining energy, and climate change is occurring

What does Earth’s climate system establish for weather?

Environmental conditions and boundaries

How do fossil fuels have an effect on climates variability?

Fossil fuels burning cause of climate changing at a very fast rate

Mitigation

Actions that reduce sources of gases that contribute to the warming of the climate system and enhance mechanisms that remove them

Greenhouse Gases

Gases that contribute to the warming of the climate system

Adaptation

The adjustment in natural or human systems to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities

Climate change heightens the vulnerabilities of what?

Societies and ecosystems

Impact is?

Climate Variability

Change in average state of climate on all spatial and temporal scales separate from singular weather events, occurs with or without human actions

Climate Change

A change in the state of the climate system, identified by changes in the average conditions and the variability of its properties, extended period (decades+) due to natural or anthropogenic processes and forcing

Climate Vulnerability

Degree to which physical, biological, and socioeconomic systems are susceptible to, or incapable of coping with, adverse impacts of a variation of climate (Ex. Katrina and Sandy)

Sustainability

Capacity to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs

What can cause resistance when balanced with economic impacts?

Balancing mitigation

Where is the majority of global warming going?

The ocean (93.4%)

Ecosystem

A collection of living organisms within the non-living substances they depend on or near the surface of the Earth

What does an ecosystem disturbance signal?

A change in the climate system

Range of variation and change are a response to?

Interactions of many mechanisms

Variability refers to what?

Natural fluctuations on a smaller time scale

Climatology

Scientific discipline that investigates Earth’s climate system, focusing on how it functions, what drives its changes, and how it varies in both in space and time (empirical and theoretical)

Climate Science

Scientific discipline generally focusing more on the physical processes on Earth that can affect or force climate to change

What do climatologists look at to pose hypotheses?

Each of the sub-systems

What are the differences between an open and a closed system?

An Open System exchanges both energy and mass while a Closed System exchanges only energy

Earth is classified as a what system?

What kind of system are the climate sub-systems considered?

Open systems

What kind of gases are at the interface of Earth and space?

Nitrogen, oxygen, and water vapor (majority, free-flowing, well-mixed)

What does the troposphere interact with?

Other spheres and sub-systems

Ozone alters the thermal profile how high above the surface?

20-30km

Stratosphere

Second lowest layer, has major temperature inversion and underlying isothermal layer

What is the name for the isothermal layer on the stratosphere?

Ozone shield

Mesosphere

Second highest layer of the atmosphere

Thermosphere

Highest layer, has temperature inversion, gases absorb highly energetic solar radiation

Hydrosphere

Includes all forms of water on, under, and over Earth’s surface

How much water is in the ocean and where is majority of freshwater?

96.5% is in the ocean and 68% of freshwater is ice

Cryosphere

Solid form portion of the Hydrosphere

What percentage of the Northern Hemisphere is covered in ice?

23%

Lithosphere

Cool outer layer encompassing Earth’s surface to the deeper, hotter portions where rocks become elastic (upper mantle)

Broken into large plates

Where is the crust thickest and where is it thinnest?

Thickest under the continents, thinnest under oceans

Asthenosphere

Layers of rock below the lithosphere that bend more like a fluid and adjust to stress

Volcanic activity can occur where?

On the plate boundaries or at hot spots

Pedosphere

Portion of the lithosphere at the top which forms the world’s soil

Biosphere

Integrates all living beings and their relationships with the other climate sub-systems

Can be broken into producers, consumers, and decomposers (Food web)

Carbon Cycle

Carbon moving through living entities (bio), non-living entities like rocks (geo) in the form of compounds (chem)

Part of the biogeochemical cycle

Conservation of Matter

Matter can be neither created nor destroyed, but can change in chemical or physical form