Earth-Sun Dynamics
Responsible for the uneven heating of the Earth, this is the angle at which sunlight reaches the Earth's surface.
What is the angle of insolation?
The ice sheets and glaciers at the __________ Pole and _________ Pole are currently melting at a rapid rate.
What are the North and South Poles?
This is a continuous movement of water in a specific direction.
What is an ocean current?
This effect is responsible for absorbing solar radiation and warming up the Earth.
What is the Greenhouse Effect?
What is the geosphere?
The obliquity or ________ of Earth is responsible for the seasons.
What is tilt?
Warming in the Arctic is happening ________ times faster than it is in the rest of the world.
What is four times faster?
Cooler currents begin from the __________ while warmer currents begin from the __________.
What is the Arctic and what is the Equator?
Carbon dioxide, methane, and ozone are examples of __________ Gases.
What are greenhouse gases?
This sphere includes all the frozen parts of the Earth.
What is the cryosphere?
Higher latitudes have __________ angles of insolation and lower latitudes have __________ angles of insolation.
What is HIGHER and what is LOWER?
Dark, bumpy surfaces have low ___________ and lighter, smooth surfaces have high ____________.
What is albedo?
Surface ocean currents typically move in this type of pattern.
What is a circular/oval pattern?
The ___________ is the continuous movement of carbon atoms between the Earth's hydrosphere, biosphere, geosphere, and atmosphere
What is the carbon cycle?
A _______ happens in the winter/summer and _______ happens in fall/spring.
What is a solstice and what is an equinox?
This changes every 100,000 years and has shown a minimal impact on Earth's climate over the last 400,00 years.
What is eccentricity?
A loop in which melting ice caps expose darker ground underneath which causes higher heat, causing oceans to warm up, leading to more melting.
What is a positive feedback loop?
This current brings warm currents to Northern Europe and cold currents to North America.
What is AMOC?
These three locations on Earth contain the greatest amount of carbon.
What is the deep ocean, atmosphere, and soil?
The release of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere, primarily caused by burning fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas.
What are carbon emissions?
Reconstructed temperature records over 400,000 years from the Vostok ice cores, showing the greatest impact on solar insolation, correlates most closely with this orbital factor.
What is axial precession?
Melting glaciers at the poles have slowed the _______, creating longer lasting weather patterns (longer periods of cold and hot weather).
What is the Jetstream?
What is density and salinity?
These two human actions are responsible for the greatest amount of carbon emissions in our atmosphere.
What is using fossil fuels and deforestation?
Anything that absorbs or stores carbon.
What is a carbon sink?