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Oceanography Final - Practice Final NONcumulative Part

Terms in this set (49)

What is the "Great Acceleration" mentioned in Professor Greene's first lecture on climate change?
It is a term referencing the acceleration of a wide range of damaging human impacts on the planet that has occurred over the past three to four decades.
Greenhouse gases accumulating in the atmosphere has created an energy imbalance in the earth system with more radiant energy coming into the earth than leaving the earth (about 2-Watts M-2). How much of the accumulating energy has been taken up by the ocean since the beginning of the industrial era?
Greater than 90%
How is it possible that a rapidly warming arctic can influence weather at lower latitudes?
The polar jet stream takes larger meanders towards lower latitudes
What do super storm Sandy, which caused so much damage to New York and New Jersey, and the California Drought of a few years ago have in common?
Both are speculated to be linked to arctic sea loss
Climate scientist James Hansen used paleo-climate records (ice core data) to determine past atmospheric CO2 concentrations and then combined this data with paleo-records for sea level height to create an equilibrium curve/graph showing how sea level height eventually equilibrates over time to a given atmospheric CO2 concentration. Based on this equilibrium curve/graph he determined that to prevent catastrophic sea level rise we should try to achieve a CO2 concentration in the atmosphere of:
350 ppm
Why are algal biofuels considered superior to biofuels obtained from other crops?
The amount of biofuel energy per unit area is much higher for algal biofuels.
Which is true about carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4)?
CO2 remains in the atmosphere for thousands of years.
CH4 remains in the atmosphere for about a decade.
The heat trapping ability of CH4 is 100 times more powerful (per molecule) than
CO2.
All of the above
Can we prevent global warming from exceeding 2oC by the end of this century without lowering both CO2 and methane (CH4) emissions?
CH4 makes an important contribution to the overall greenhouse gas forcing and must also be reduced or we will rise above the 2oC warming threshold by the end of the century.
There has been an important increase in atmospheric methane concentration beginning in about 2008. Professor Howarth went through an extensive accounting process to narrow down the likely source of this methane increase. What was his conclusion?
It was caused by the process of fracking natural gas (so called unconventional shale gas extraction).
Which is a bigger natural biological source of methane release to the atmosphere?
Freshwater systems
How did the current goal of getting the Cornell campus to carbon neutrality by 2035 initially start?
It all began when members of the KyotoNow! student organization camped in front of Day Hall in 2001 and demanded that President Rawlings commit the campus to carbon reductions consistent with the Kyoto Protocol.
How deep will Cornell have to drill into the earth to find temperatures high enough to heat the campus effectively?
3-5 Kilometers
Cornell's CO2 emissions have declined by 36% since 2008. What has happened to the upstream methane release attributed to using natural gas obtained from the fracking extraction process in Pennsylvania shale gas fields during this same time period?
Methane release increased pretty dramatically since 2008
One of the overarching messages of Professor Greene's lecture on Right Whale Conservation was:
Climate variability in the arctic has the potential to influence birth (calving) rates of right whales in the Gulf of Maine.
How many of the top predator fish, like swordfish and large tuna, have been taken from the ocean over the past several decades?
90%
How many global fisheries are currently fully exploited or over-exploited?
93%
How much area of ocean seafloor is bottom-trawled each year relative to the amount of area lost to deforestation each year?
Bottom trawling area is 150 times larger than deforestation area.
In the movie Forest Gump, the likeable main character (Forest Gump) goes shrimping on a bottom trawler in the Gulf of Mexico. Does the fishing method he used to collect his shrimp make Forest Gump a little less likeable (i.e., was the fishing method he used excessively destructive to the seafloor)?
Yes, Forest Gump is less likeable - bottom trawling for shrimp is very destructive.
What else do long-line fishing methods accidently catch besides the targeted fish?
Seabirds
Turtles
Sharks
All of the above
What is the driving force behind the astonishing increase in shark finning over the past decade?
Increased demand for Shark fin soup
Where does much of the food that is fed to farmed salmon come from?
Small wild-caught prey fish like Anchovy, Sardine, or Menhaden
If you were on a romantic dinner date and wanted to impress them with your sustainability knowledge, which of the following would be your most environmentally friendly choice?
Farmed Planktivorous Tilapia
After all of the oil-soaked birds and other marine life are removed from the beaches after a big oil spill, how long does the oil remain in the environment at low-levels and cause a slow, but steady decline the overall health of the ecosystem?
Low level amounts of oil remain for decades after a big spill.
What is the source of the heavy metal pollution in the ocean?
Smoke stacks from unregulated factories and coal-fired power plants that inject heavy metals into the atmosphere that then wash from the atmosphere and into the ocean when it rains.
If mercury levels in algae increased by 1 unit of mercury per unit of algae, how many units of mercury would you expect in a unit of tuna due to bio-accumulation? algae--->copepod--->small fish--->medium fish--->large fish--->tuna
100,000
What is the mechanism responsible for plastic pollution being concentrated to high levels in subtropical gyres?
Ekman Transport forced by the Trade Winds and the Westerly Winds.
If your community has a Secondary Sewage Treatment Facility, what has not been removed from the original sewage water before it is discharged into the environment?
Inorganic plant nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorous) have not been
removed
What fraction of the total amount of nitrogen put down on crops each year eventually enters the streams and coastal environment by the combined effects of direct fertilizer runoff and leaching from manure ponds of large concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs)?
About 37% each year
How does nutrient pollution lead to so-called "Dead Zones"?
Excessive nutrients allow phytoplankton to grow to exceptionally high abundances and when the phytoplankton die and sink to the bottom, they become food for bacteria that draw down oxygen levels to zero.
Does the corn ethanol program in the United States increase the size of the Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone?
Yes
What is the Magnuson-Stevens Act?
This act is the guiding authority for fishing regulation in all US coastal waters.
Does the marine mammal protection act make it a crime for most people (excluding for example some Native American Indian tribes) to kill all marine mammals or is there a specific group of marine mammals it is meant to protect?
All mammals are protected from being killed in US waters.
he Pew Charitable Trust's Oceans Commission and the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy were the first comprehensive studies of marine policy in over 30 years. Both commissions concluded that US ocean resources are at great risk and both recognized a common factor that prevented good management of US Costal waters. What was this common factor?
Too many government agencies that have separate regulations that are
often in conflict with each other
In 2010, The Obama Administration implemented, by executive order, a new National Ocean Policy (NOP) based largely on the recommendations made by the Pew Charitable Trust's Oceans Commission and the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy. Regional Planning was a centerpiece of this new policy. What did this new policy approach intend to do?
Bring order to the chaos by bringing all stakeholders together where
they can weigh the priorities of the user of the coastal environment as a whole rather than the piecemeal first-come-first-served approach used in the past
In 2018, The Trump Administration rescinded the Obama Administration's executive order mentioned in the previous question and replaced it with a new executive order that focuses less on ocean sustainability and more on economic development.
True
What is CITES?
An international agreement designed to limit the trade of endangered species on land and in the ocean
Professor Allmon lectured on the current sixth mass extinction event that is being caused by humans. An important point he tried to make to give students a reference point from which to measure the magnitude of human impacts was to show the diversity and abundance of the natural world that existed hundreds or thousands of years ago and avoided making the comparison over just a few decades.
True
What did Professor Allmon show was a common feature that is evident in all mass extinction events?
Dramatic Loss of Coral reefs
How is Sustainable Development defined?
Development that meets the needs of the present generation without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs
When the Ecological Footprint for each individual on earth is summed over the entire human population for 2017, the total is 1.7 planet earths. What does this mean?
It means we are drawing on earth resources at a rate that is 70% more than earth needs to sustain the wellbeing of future generations.
What is meant by the term: Tragedy of the Commons?
It refers to the inevitable collapse of a common resource that is open to all who want to use it
According to Bruce Monger, what prevents some people from speaking up in favor of ocean conservation after learning about all the severe environmental threats impacting the ocean?
-They don't realize that the ocean is their own life support system and so they have every right to speak up for what keeps them alive.
-They don't realize that as a highly informed citizen they have a civic duty to speak up.
-They don't realize they are in charge of everything and have within themselves the ability to act on their own ideas and not just follow the crowd.
All of the above
As an informed citizen who now knows more about environmental and climate change issues than 99.99% of all the other people on this planet, do you have a civic duty to raise your voice and give leaders your own thoughts on the need to change directions on the environment?
Yes
According to Bruce Monger, when someone screams that "we need to drill more oil because we need more jobs" he sees it as truly selfless act and sees the person as possessing a deep sense of caring for all people.
False, Bruce sees it a generational selfishness. He sees it as "my
generation needs this oil and I don't care about any other generations".
According the Nobel Laureate Elaine Orstrom, The Tragedy of the Commons can be avoided through the following approach:
Some mix of both government regulation and self-control
Why was the UN's 21st Conference of Parties (COP-21) Meeting Paris in 2015 so important to the climate change movement?
The consensus statement agreed upon by nearly every single nation on the planet set as a very clear goal the need to decarbonize the global energy system by mid-century to maintain stable human societies.
Was the most famous speech ever given by Marin Luther King Jr. called "I have a Dream" (for a better future) or was it called "I have a Nightmare" (if we don't change our current ways)?
He spoke about the dream for a better future to motivate people toward a changing society to make it better.
According to Bruce Monger, is the global fossil carbon energy system we have today super awesome - or does he think it is it absurdly primitive and something we should run away from as fast as possible - irrespective of any global warming problem?
He thinks fossil carbon energy is one step above burning logs in a cave and that we will all be much better off with clean renewable energy.
How does the revenue-neutral carbon tax known as Fee and Dividend work? You tax fossil carbon at its source
You tax carbon at its source and at the end of the year all the tax money collected is given back to each citizen in the country in the form of a rebate check for the same amount to each individual.
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