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Paleoclimatology (ice age)

Terms in this set (13)

(1) Know the difference between a climate archive and climate proxy.
Climate archive is the physical entity holding climate data(tree rings, stalagmites, corals, sediment/ice cores)
Climate proxy is a quantifiable indicator of climate change contained in a climate archive(growth rate, density, fossils)
(2) What is the present day obliquity of the Earth?
23.5 degrees (tilt of earth)
(3) What are the present day positions of the Sun over the surface of the Earth for the solstices and equinoxes?
Equinoxes, sun over 0 latitude, equator, and there is equal day and night
Solstice has the longest day and shortest night(Northern, reversed in Southern) Sun is over 23.5 degrees altitude N or S
(4) Know what to call the cycles of solar input variability caused by Earth's orbital parameters.
milankovoitch cycles
(5) Know the three orbital parameters that cause Milankovitch cycles, and the periodicity of each cycle.
- angle of tilt-obliquity-4,000 yrs
- eccentricity-circularity-100,000 yrs
- precession-23,000yrs
-wobble - 25,700 yrs
-shift - 23,000 yrs
(6) Changes in insolation seem to cause the most significant climate changes if it occurs during which season in which hemisphere?
summer in northern hemisphere
(7) Considering only Milankovitch cycles, what effect should they have over the past 6 thousand years, and what effect do we expect for the future?
cooling
(8) When did the last ice age begin, and when did the last glaciation begin and end?
Presently in an ice age that began 2Ma
Last glaciation period began 75,000yrs ago and ended 10,000yrs ago
(9) What does paleoclimatology tell us was the general global climate trend over the Cenozoic?
Cooling
(10) What are the three main ways to get an ice age on Earth?
1. Plate tectonics
- Changing ocean circulation
2. Reduce greenhouse gas in the atmosphere
-Burry organic material or increase weathering of continental crust
3. Changes in the orbit of the Earth around the Sun
- Milankovitchcycles
(11) The formation of what mountain belt in the past may have helped cause the onset of the current Ice Age?
himalayan mountains
(12) What is the current best explanation for the PETM (Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum)?
heating up of oceans releases methane from ocean floors
(13) What was the dominant periodicity of the glacial/interglacial cycles from 2.5 to 1 million years ago, and from 1 million years ago until the present?
41,000
100,000
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