Revision Flashcards
What is energy flux?
The amount of energy reaching the Earth per unit time per unit area.
What is Earth’s mean albedo?
0.3
What is monitoring the Earth’s energy budget?
CERES has been monitoring the energy budget since 1997.
What is the Coriolis force?
Deflection caused by Earth’s rotation. Acting right in the Northern Hemisphere and vice versa in the South.
Why are the poles (especially the Arctic) warming faster than the rest of the world?
- Changes to albedo
- Thinner atmosphere and drier air are heated faster.
- The transport of energy to the poles by large weather systems.
What can change the Earth’s energy balance?
- Fluctuations in solar output.
- Milankovitch cycles.
- Changing the amount of atmospheric GHG.
- Changing Earth’s albedo through land use change or
areosols.
What is the definition of a mass extinction, and what causes it?
A 75% loss of all species in a geologically short space of time.
- Destruction of habitat
- Hunting
- Introduction of invasive species.
How long does a complete cycle through the oceans take?
About 1000 years.
How will global warming impact ocean circulation?
Warmer temps will melt the Greenland ice sheet, resulting in an increase in freshwater which is less likely to sink. This will slow the southward flow of deep, cold water and therefore the North Atlantic current which replaces it.
What monitors the North Atlantic Overturning Circulation?
The RAPID array.
How does global warming cause sea levels to rise?
- Thermal expansion
2. The added water from melting ice sheets and glaciers.
What is coastal squeeze?
When the eroding shoreline reaches a sea wall causing the beach to narrow due to the sediment deficit.
What is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?
Discovered in 1997, it is a million sq mile patch of rubbish mainly comprised of tiny plastic pieces.
What are biogeochemical cycles?
The recycling and reuse of organic molecules and elements.
What is the compost bomb instability?
An explosive release of soil carbon from peatlands or permafrost into the atmosphere which occurs above a critical rate of global warming.
What is a common pool resource, and what problem do they create?
A resource that everyone has equal rights to use because they are a public good. This creates a free-rider problem, where people receives the benefits of a good but does not pay for it.
What are Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ)?
The area, 200 miles, which is controlled by the country. 90% of the global fish catch comes from EEZs.
How much of Earth’s water is freshwater?
2.5% is freshwater, of this 68.7% is locked up in glaciers and icecaps.
What is water footprint?
A measure of humanity’s appropriation of freshwater in volumes of water consumed and/or polluted.
What is the purpose of NASA’s GRACE mission?
It provides measurements of variations in the total water stored in and on the land. It does this by measuring changes in the Earth’s gravity.
What fuels drought?
- Natural variations
2. Land use change and desertification
What land type has the highest erosion rates per year?
Agricultural land.
What are the four ecosystem services?
- Supporting: nutrient cycling, primary production and soil formation.
- Provisioning: food, freshwater and fuel
- Regulating: climate, flood and disease regulation
- Cultural: aesthetic, spiritual and eductional
What is a keystone species?
A species that has a disproportionally large effect on its environment relative to its abundance.
