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Modern Climate Change/Global Warming (keep working on this)

Terms in this set (18)

1. Evaluate the following statement: "Global climate change is just a natural cycle and not impacted by human activities"
a. Climate change does occur it occurs within natural feedback loops. Human activity is creating a forcing which will exacerbate existing feedback loops and cause climate to change than it would naturally.
2. Evaluate the following statement: "It was a cold winter where I live, so global warming must not be happening."
a. Global climate can't be regionally measured. It's over the course of several years. The earth is a system. Just because it's getting cold in one place, doesn't mean it's not overall getting warmer.
3. What is the physical/scientific basis for human-induced climate change?
a. The keeling curve shows that there's more CO2. There has been significantly more CO2 related.
b. We know from ice cores that CO2 is correlated with higher temperatures.
c. That global temperatures have gone up by .6 degrees celsius from 1956 - 2006
4. When was the last time that CO2 concentrations are believed to be as high as they are now?
a. 23 million years ago.
5. Can climate models predict global temperature changes that have occurred over the last centuries?
a. Yes, through models that show CO2 forcing that causes temperature increases.
6. What forcings are included in this analysis?
a. CO2, temperature increase
7. What are some indicators of climate and what do they say about modern climate change?
a. Melting of arctic sea ice and natural disasters. The 10 warmest years in the past several centuries have all been in the last 20 years.
8. What radiative forcing components dominate the radiative forcing term? Name the most important greenhouse gases.
a. CO2 absorbs and re-emits IR
b. CH4, H2O and CO2
9. Are there agents that helped cool the climate over the 20th century? Name the most important one.
a. Sulfate aerosols, they create cloud condensation which increases planetary albedo
Name one significant natural forcing of climate during the 20th century
a. The increase of CO2 in the atmosphere
How large were solar variations relative to greenhouse gas forcing on 20th century climate?
a. Relatively small
What does the GWP (Global Warming Potential) of a chemical mean?
a. How much heat a greenhouse gas traps in the atmosphere
Name two positive climate feedbacks, and describe how they work?
CO2, H2O and Temperature
Temperature, Sea Ice, Albedo, Water
How is attribution done using climate models? What is the conclusion of the attribution studies - is the warming of the climate due to natural or anthropogenic causes?
Combination of keeling curve and sediment analysis etc. Warming is caused by anthropogenic gasses like CO2.
What are the two major points of Pacala and Socolow's analysis regarding carbon dioxide emissions and global warming?
CO2 emmisions are going to double and we can use wedges idea to stabalize the increase and even decrease it.
What is the IPCC and do they synthesize the science or produce new scientific research?
The IPCC is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which assesses physical scientific aspects of climate system and climate change
97% of climate experts agree humans are causing global warming, but the Oregon Institute for Science and Medicine (a climate skeptic organization) states that over 31,000 scientists signed their petition ("Global Warming Petition Project") which says "there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide will, in the forseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere". How can one reconcile these 2 seemingly opposite statements?
This article was a faux article formatted to look like a published paper, but was neither peer-reviewed nor published. The National Academy quickly distanced itself from the project saying that they did not support claims made in the article
Solar activity appears to correlate with global average temperature up to 1975 quite well. Is solar activity therefore responsible for the modern observed
warming?
Solar radiation is a major driver for climate overall. But modern temperature rise can only be explained by including GHG forcings
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