Lecture Quizzes

Question 1

What does the term “sustainability” mean?

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Question 2

Which populations on Earth are largely responsible for unsustainable resource consumption?

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Question 3

Why is land use a critical issue for sustainability?

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Question 4

What are the main anthropogenic sources responsible for the increases the greenhouse gasses CO2, CH4 and N2O?

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Question 5

Why are the greenhouse gasses CH4 and N2O often expressed as “CO2-equivalents”?

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Question 6

What are “ecosystem services”? Can you give examples of provisioning, regulating and cultural services?

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Question 7

What proportions of land are used by people for crops, pasture and timber globally?

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Question 8

Why is global cereal production rising faster than food calorie production?

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Question 9

Describe how trend climate warming can increase extreme heat events even without any increase in climate variability. Base your explanation around the bell-shaped curve of temperature distribution.

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Question 10

How does warming lead to more extreme heavy rainfall events?

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Question 11

Approximately what percentage of the GHG emissions of the UK does DEFRA estimate to come from agriculture and why does this underplay the role of this sector in overall emissions?

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Question 12

According to Goucher et al (2017) what proportion of the carbon footprint of a loaf of bread comes from wheat growth?

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Question 13

What is meant by co-benefits and trade-offs between SDGs?

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Question 14

Can you provide some examples of each?

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Question 15

Define what scientists mean by the terms “ecosystem” and “biome”.

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Question 16

Are ecosystems open or closed systems with respect to energy and materials?

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Question 17

Describe in broad terms the pattern of biome distribution with temperature and precipitation.

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Question 18

According to the Al-Mufti hump back curve (also called “Grime’s hump back curve”) why are there low levels of plant diversity in ecosystems with very low and very high levels of productivity?

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Question 19

What are positive and negative feedbacks?

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Question 20

Can you give an example of positive and negative feedback within the Earth System and explain how they influence climate?

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Question 21

Can you explain what we refer as the geological carbon and how it works?

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Question 22

Can you explain why forests are not the ‘lungs of the Earth’?

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Question 23

Can you explain how the geological carbon cycle can be used to sequester carbon via enhanced rock weathering?

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Question 24

What are the three main pools of phosphorus in the environment and which processes result in their production and consumption?

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Question 25

What is the definition of rhizodeposition? How will this be altered by future climate change and how will this influence the 'CO2 fertilisation effect'?

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Question 26

What are the issues surrounding the use of rock phosphate fertiliers?

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Question 27

What is the interaction between 'phototrophs' and 'heterotrophs'?

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Question 28

How quickly is applied ammonium fertiliser nitrified?

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Question 29

What is the main function of denitrification?

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Question 30

What are the main environmental factors affecting denitrification that cause variation in the release of N2O and N2?

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Question 31

How good are mammals at breaking down cellulose?

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Question 32

A cow can produce several hundred litres of saliva a day; why do they produce so much?

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Question 33

Why can we not simply kill methanogens in the rumen to solve the issue of methane release from cows?

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Question 34

What are external influences on climate, and give an example?

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Question 35

Water vapour is a greenhouse gas but it does not "cause" global warming. Explain what we mean by this.

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Question 36

Describe one pro and one con for an organisms adapting to climate change using “plasticity” or “evolution”

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Question 37

Why is climate velocity fast in flat landscapes and slow in mountainous landscapes?

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Question 38

What are the three main mechanisms that allow plants to grow more with elevated CO2.

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Question 39

Which terrestrial biomes of the world will show the greatest increase in productivity in response to elevated CO2.

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Question 40

When using a repeat survey approach to monitor biodiversity change, what is an advantage and a disadvantage of collecting occupancy data?

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Question 41

When describing ecosystem responses to climate change, what is “resistance” and “resilience”?

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Question 42

What are the top three threats to global biodiversity and which of these is considered the most important in tropical regions?

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Question 43

Biodiversity loss is often greater in habitats that are more disturbed by humans. Name three factors that help or facilitate disturbance by humans.

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Question 44

Describe how permafrost thaws by deepening of the active layer?

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Question 45

Arctic greening is caused by longer and warmer summers. What change to vegetation results in the greening?

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Question 46

Describe the seeder-feeder effect that can increase N deposition in upland and mountainous areas.

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Question 47

Which methodologies currently available to reduce emissions from livestock production can be applied with no overall cost?

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Question 48

Why can both reduced fertilisation and increased fertilisation reduce emissions from arable agriculture?

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Question 49

Why are novel methods desparately needed to mitigate agricultural emissions of greenhouse gases?

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Question 50

What do we mean by Net Zero?

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Question 51

What is climate intervention and what are the two main actions that can be achieved?

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Question 52

What CO2 removal (CDR) consists of? Give some examples

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Question 53

What are land-based CDR strategies and can you give examples that could be deployed to reach net zero?

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Question 54

What is solar radiation management? Give some examples

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Question 55

Within the carbon cycle, can you define what are fluxes and in which units are commonly reported?

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Question 56

Can you define carbon pool, identify the main carbon pools within the Earth System and what units are typically reported?

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