Unit 8 Environmental Science: Climate

What fraction of incoming solar radiation (isolation) reaches the Earth's surface?

1/2

What fraction of solar energy is absorbed by Carbon Dioxide, water vapor, ozone, methane, and a few other gases?

1/4

What fraction of the solar energy is reflected by clouds and atmospheric gases?

1/4

Climate warming has already caused global mean sea levels to rise about___ centimeters in the past 100 years.

20 cm

The 'Kneeling curve" showing CO2 measurements at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, shows that concentrations of CO2 have reached approximately what level, in parts per million (PPM)?

400

Every grams of evaporation water absorbs how many calories of energy as it transform from liquid to gas?

580

What is CO?

About 90% undergoes secondary reactions that produce ozone.

El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO)

Affects weather throughout the Pacific causes heavy monsoons or serious droughts.

What do many scientists believe is the most important environmental issue of all times?

Anthropogenic (human-caused) global climate change to be the most important environmental issue of our times.

Milankovitch cycles

Are due to changes in the Earth's orbit, tilt, and wobble on its axis.

Primary Pollutants

Are released in a harmful form.

Fugitive/Nonpoint-source

Are those that do not go through a smokestack.

Secondary Pollutants

Become hazardous after reactions in the air.

Particular Matter

Below 2.5 micrometer they can deposit inside lung tissue and some types, such as asbestos, are known carcinogens.

Wedge Analysis

Breaking down a large problem into smaller, bite-size pieces

Which of the following is not a condition associated with chronic exposure to air pollution?

Bronchitis, Emphysema, Asthma, and Lung Cancer.

Most of the excessive carbon dioxide that is expected to cause global warming is generated by

Burning of fossil fuels and production of cement and clearing of forests only.

What is SO2?

Can be oxidized to form sulfur trioxide and sulfuric acid.

What is Nitrogen Oxides?

Can form a reddish-brown gas that gives photochemical smog its distinctive color.

According to ice core data,

Carbon Dioxide and temperature have the same pattern of variation.

What is the most important greenhouse gas?

Carbon Dioxide because of its abundance and because it lasts for decades or centuries in the atmosphere.

Injecting carbon deep into underground aquifers of porous stone deposits is an example of______________

Carbon capture and storage

Means that net-greenhouse gas emissions are zero.

Carbon neutral

Ozone Hole

Chemical reactions of atmospheric gases and pollution produce the phenomenon known as the

Convection Currents

Circular currents in the mantle caused by the magma being heated by the core off the Earth.

Unconventional Pollutants

Compounds that are produced in less volume than conventional pollutants, but that are especially toxic or hazardous.

Weather

Daily temperature changes, wind, and precipitation.

True or False: An electrostatic precipitator helps remove sulfur oxides from coal combustion gas emissions.

False, it removes particles from a gas stream by using electrical energy to charge particles either positively or negatively.

True or False: A temperature inversion occurs when warm air rests near the ground with cold air layers above.

False, it's when a layer of warm air develops on top of a layer of cooler air.

True or False: The melting of artic and Antarctic sea ice produces a negative feedback loop that is contributing to greater increases in global warming.

False, melting of the ice would increase global warming.

True or False: The 1987 Montreal Protocol agreement to phase out CFC's was largely ineffective.

False, reduced the concentration in the atmospohere.

True or False: Surfaces that have a high albedo (reflectivity) percentage are generally dark in color.

False, they are generally light in color.

True or False: Sulfur Dioxide and Nitrogen oxides emissions from power plants have increased in the United States in the past quarter century.

False, they have decreased emissions.

Particles such as ("black carbon") are hazardous to human health but do not stay in the atmosphere long enough to contribute to global warming.

False, they stay in the atmosphere for a long time.

True or False: The Kyoto Protocol established in 1997 was successful in reducing overall global carbon emissions.

False, was not successful made it worse.

The Parris Climate Accord signed in 2015 outlines a goal of keeping global warming below 4 degrees Celsius.

False, well below 2, preferably 1.5.

What does the Earth's atmosphere consist of?

Gas molecules, mostly nitrogen and oxygen and a variety of other trace gases, relatively densely packed near the surface and thinning gradually to about 500 kilometers above the earth's surface.

In India and China factors contributing to poor air quality include.

High sulfur coal, farmers burning crop residues, few pollution controls, lack of enforcement measures.

Effects of acid rain, snow, and fog include all of the following except

Increased likelihood of temperature inversions.

What is the IPCC and what does it do?

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Brings together scientists and government representatives from 130 countries with the aim to review scientific evidence on the causes and likely effects of human-caused climate change.

Greenhouse Effect

Is a common term to describe the capture of energy by gases in the atmosphere.

What is O3?

Is a highly reactive oxidizing agent at ground level.

Consequences of Climate Change?

It is now warmer than it has been in the last two thousand years. Over the last century, the average global temperature has climbed about 0.6 degree Celsius (1 degree Fahrenheit). Global sea level has risen approximately 20 centimeters (8 inches) in the past century. Permafrost is melting; houses, roads, pipelines, sewage systems, and transmission lines are being damaged as the ground sinks beneath them. Arctic sea ice is only half as thick now as it was 30 years ago and Antarctic ice shelves are breaking up.

Which of the following is not among six criteria pollutants addressed in the Clean Air Act?

Mercury

Countries from which region have the highest per capita carbon dioxide footprint?

Middle East

Aerosols

Minute particles and liquid droplets collectively are called this.

Which of these is unlikely to result from climate change?

Movement of tectonic plates.

What are examples of Climate Change?

Nearly all mountain glaciers are retreating rapidly and many have disappeared entirely. Satellite images and surface measurements show that growing seasons are now as much as three weeks longer in a band across northern Eurasia and North America than they were 30 years ago. Droughts are becoming more frequent and widespread. Plants and animals are breeding earlier or extending their range into new territory. Coral reefs worldwide are "bleaching," losing key algae.

The Clean Air Act has decreased emissions of all of the following pollutants except

Nitrogen Oxides

Destruction of ozone molecules in the stratosphere is concerning because

Ozone absorbs some of the stronger forms of ultraviolet radiation.

The primary sources of sulfur dioxide are___________ __________

Power Plants

When is Methane produce?

Produced anywhere organic matter decays without oxygen.

What are the disputes over Climate Evidence?

Reducing climate change requires abandoning our current way of life (no, but it does require that we use different energy sources). There is no alternative to current energy systems (Europe and China are showing this to be false). A comfortable lifestyle requires high CO2 output (data show this is false). Natural changes such as solar variation can explain observed warming (changes are slight and do not coincide with the climate changes).

Data from Mauna Loa shows that CO2 levels since 1958 have

Risen steadily, except for declines in the northern summer.

Carbon dioxide accounts for what percentage of greenhouse gases?

80%

Amendments made to the CAA in 1990 include all of the following except.

A requirement for the installation of solar panels on all federal government buildings.

Temperature Inversions

A stable layer of warm air overlying cooler air, trapping pollutants near ground level.

According to the World Health Organization the city with the highest levels of air pollution in the world is__________

Delhi

What is much of the incoming solar energy used for?

Evaporate water

Lead

Formerly a component of gasoline in the United States. Can cause serve neurological damage.

Stratosphere

Has almost no water vapor and nearly 1,000 times more ozone.

Sulfur Dioxide (SO2)

Is a colorless, corrosive gas that damages both plants and animals. Once in the atmosphere, it can which reacts with water vapor form sulfuric acid (H2SO4).

Point Source

Is a smokestack or some other concentrated pollution origin.

States that signatory nations must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases below 1990 levels by 2012.

Kyoto Protocol

The two main gases making up the lower atmosphere are

Nitrogen and Oxygen

Climatologists can learn about ancient temperatures by comparing_____ isotopes in samples of air trapped in ice.

Oxygen

Troposphere

The layer closest to the earth's surface.

Latent Heat

When water vapor contains a huge amount of stored energy.

Carbon Neutral

an activity that does not change atmospheric CO2 concentrations

Given what you know about the likelihood of climate change, the best thing to do is

Severely cut back on production of greenhouse gases.

When El Nino occurs every three to seven years, a mass warm Pacific water that is usually pushed westward by trade winds

Surges back eastward toward South America.

What are responses to disputes over Climate Change?

Temperature changes are leveling off (True on short time frames sometimes, but over decades the trends in surface air temperatures and in sea level continue to rise). We had cool temperatures and snowstorms last year, not heat and drought (Regional differences in temperature and precipitation trends are predicted by climate models). Climate scientists don't know everything, and they have made errors and misstatements (fraud in data collection is almost unheard of in science).

Milankovitch cycles account for cyclical weather patters related to

Tilt, eccentricity, and wobble in earth's orbit.

Carbon __________________ is a financial approach to carbon reduction whereby companies are granted permits for specified amounts of carbon emissions, and companies that reduce emissions below permitted levels can sell the extra permits.

Trading

The primary source of carbon monoxide and particulates is ________________

Transportation

The effects of temperature inversions include

Trapping of air pollutants near the ground.

True or False: According to the IPCC, the projected cost to global GDP of climate mitigation measures will be less that the cost of climate change if we take no action.

True, GDP will go up.

True or False: Hydroelectric dams are a significant source of methane emissions.

True, Hydroelectric dams are an importent source of methane emissions.

True or False: The overall economic benefits of the CAA exceed the costs of regulation, enforcement, and compliance.

True, its price is on the rise and increasing each year.

True or False: Over the past 800,000 years global carbon dioxide concentrations have varied between 180 and 300 parts per million.

True, they have stayed between 180 and 300.

Urban Heat Island

Warmer than in surrounding countryside, a condition.

What are some ways that we can control Greenhouse Emissions?

We can reduce dependence on coal, which produces more CO2 per energy unit than any other fuel. We could institute fees for selling fossil fuels-these would help fossil fuel prices represent their many hidden costs. We can invest in new technologies and energy efficiency. We can institute emissions trading by instituting a legal cap on emissions then allowing companies to buy and sell shares of that total cap.

Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)

contribute to the formation of ozone and other photochemical oxidants. A wide array of these organic (carbon-based), volatile (evaporated) chemicals derive from industrial processes such as refining of oil and gas, or plastics and chemical manufacturing.

Ozone (O3)

ground level ozone is highly reactive oxidizing agent that damages eyes, lungs, and plant tissues, as well as paint, rubber, and plastics. It is a secondary pollutant, created by chemical reactions that are initiated by solar energy.

Particular Material

includes dust, ash, soot, lint, smoke, pollen, spores, algal cells, and many other suspended materials like aerosols.

Carbon monoxide (CO)

is a colorless, odorless, but highly toxic gas produced mainly by incomplete combustion of fuel (coal, oil, charcoal, wood, or gas). CO inhibits respiration in animals by binding irreversibly to hemoglobin in blood.

Hazardous Air Pollutants

these chemicals cause cancer, nerve damage, disrupt hormone function, and fetal development.

Toxic Release Inventory (TRI)

to help inform communities about toxic substances produced and handled in their area.