Nats101 Intro to Global Change Make-Believe Quiz 2 Solutions Name____________________________________
SELECT THE SINGLE BEST ANSWER AMONG THE CHOICES AND PLACE CORRECT ANSWER IN BLANK TO LEFT. Quiz will cover lecture material from Thursday Aug. 30 through Tuesday Sept. 11 (consult relevant readings in syllabus)
___B__1. Terrestrial radiation has its peak in (1)____, whereas solar radiation has its peak in (2)________.
A. 1-x-ray radiation; 2-infrared radiation C. 1-visible; 2-infrared
B. 1-infrared; 2-visible D. 1-infrared; 2-ultraviolet
__C___2. The point at which our climate may be irreversibly altered is known as _________.
A. the point of no return
C. the tipping point
B. the point of overheating D. the dew point
__B___3. [revised 9/12/07]
N2,
the most common gas in the atmosphere, is not a
greenhouse gas because __________.
A. it freezes at 77K B. the molecule doesn't absorb infrared radiation C. it absorbs most incident infrared radiation
__D___4. ________ is not a fossil fuel but it contributes to the man-made release of CO2 to the atmosphere.
A. Petroleum B. Coal C. Gas flaring D. Cement manufacture E. Natural gas
___F__5. True or False: The United States, covering about 1.9% of Earth's surface, is a good sample from which to estimate the global mean surface temperature trend for Earth over the past century.
___D__6. Current generation climate models run with anticipated future greenhouse gas emissions predict ________ globally-averaged temperature change over the 21st century.
A. between -4 and +4°C B. between -1 and +5°C C. between -1 and +5°C D. between +1 and +4°C
___D__7. If liquid nitrogen (-196°C) is poured on an inflated balloon, the balloon will shrink mainly because ____.
A. the
balloon is shattered
C. the
liquid nitrogen absorbs the air in the balloon
B. the air in the balloon is frozen D. the low
temperature decreases gas pressure and volume
___B__8. The
country of _______ has just equaled and is about to surpass the
A. Russia
C. Saudi
Arabia E. India
B. China D.
__C___9. Which one of these processes is a "sink" that removes some CO2 from our atmosphere?
A.
convection C. photosynthesis E.
decomposition
B. evaporation D. runoff
F.
volcano
eruptions
___E__10. Currently, man-made CO2 emissions worldwide are contributing almost ___ gigatons of carbon (Gt C) per year to the atmosphere.
A. 8000 B. 1000 C. 80 D. 10 E. 8 F. 1
__F___11. True or False: The Coriolis force points to the left of horizontal motion in the Northern Hemisphere, and to the right of horizontal motion in the Southern Hemisphere.
___D__12. The
A. 10% B. 25% C. 9944/100% D. 50%
13. What are current
atmospheric CO2 concentrations (in ppm)? Are these the highest the
Earth has
ever experienced? Explain.
385 ppm. Ice cores indicate this is the highest it has been in at least the last 500,000 years, but it is believed to have been much higher several times in the geologic past, including about 400 million years ago.
14. If the mean July
temperature in
Climate is naturally variable. In any temperature record, there will always be one year with the highest temperature, and some of them will be in recent years. If we are talking about global warming we need temperature records from a larger area and more months of the year.
15. If the trend of mean
temperatures in
Climate is naturally variable. A flat temperature trend at one site is not necessarily (and probably not) evidence of lack of GLOBAL warming.
16. Why might the rate of rise of global atmospheric CO2 concentrations be different from one year to the next?
Over the last 50 years of continuous atmospheric CO2 measurements at Mauna Loa,Hawaii, the CO2 concentration has risen but not at a constant rate- sometimes the rate is a little faster and sometimes a little slower. This is undoubtedly related to strength of sources (mechanism/processes that remove CO2 from the atmosphere) and sinks (processes/mechanisms that add CO2 to the atmosphere). For example, photosynthesis by green plants is a mechanism that removes CO2 from the atmosphere and if higher in one year it could slow the CO2 increase. On the other hand, if there is more fossil-fuel CO2 inputs in one year, or more respiration taking place (the opposite reaction of photosynthesis), the rate of CO2 rise could increase.
17. How is the enhanced greenhouse effect different from the natural greenhouse effect?
The natural greenhouse effect existed
before the Industrial Revolution; it keeps the Earth's surface
temperature much warmer than it would be without an atmosphere
containing water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane. The enhanced
greenhouse effect is the warming associated with human-caused changes in greenhouse
gas concentrations in the atmosphere, primarily carbon dioxide,
methane and nitrous oxide.
18. Consider the following
elements of a coupled system: (1) atmospheric CO2 causes global
temperatures to
rise (enhanced greenhouse effect); (2) below a critical temperature
Tcrit,
plants grow more with increasing atmospheric CO2 (greening); (3) above
a
critical temperature Tcrit, plants grow less with increasing
atmospheric CO2
(moisture stress); (4) plants use atmospheric CO2 to grow. Diagram the
coupled
system and identify any positive or negative feedback loops you find.
See
the following diagram. There are two feedback loops. The
left one (outlined in green) is positive, and the right one (outlined
in green) is negative.
19. Diagram the circulation of the
wind about a low pressure
system in the Southern Hemisphere. First draw a simple low
pressure
system with a pressure gradient. Then show arrows representing the
Coriolis
force, the pressure gradient force, and the resulting wind velocity
vector.
See
the following diagram. Note that the pressure gradient force is
pointing toward the center of the low pressure system; in geostrophic
balance the coriolis force is equal and opposite to the pressure
gradient force; and the coriolis force is pointing to the right of the
velocity vector for this Southern Hemisphere example.
back to syllabus/schedule.