Heat
What is the variable that measures the effect of humidity on how hot it feels?
Heat index; also acceptable: wet bulb temperature
Which side of a mountain is rainier?
Windward. This is where orographic lift cools down the air so that water vapor condenses.
Global warming is expected to cause ____ droughts and ____ floods.
more; more
Most extreme events have a ____ return period under global warming.
Shorter
Which country has the highest cumulative CO2 emissions?
United States
What is the effect that explains why cities are warmer than areas with high vegetation? Why are minority communities more likely to be found in hot neighborhoods?
The urban heat island effect; redlining in the 1930s.
In the annual average, the ITCZ is slightly ______ of the equator.
northward
A reservoir drying up is an example of __________ drought.
hydrological
In general, climate change is making extreme heat _________ likely and extreme cold ________ likely.
more ; less
GDP and emissions of a country are ______ correlated.
Positively
Vegetation has a _______ albedo than most developed surfaces, and it also leads to a local cooling because of _________ .
lower ; evapotranspiration
Two mechanisms for forming precipitation are surface [convergence/divergence] and [upslope/downslope] winds.
convergence; upslope
A location in a drought is ____ susceptible to floods.
More. Drier soil leads to worse floods when it rains.
What effect would increased internal variability have on the temperature distribution?
The distribution would become wider, the average would not change
Over most of Earth's history, the climate was much _____ than it is nowadays.
warmer
Name one direct and one indirect health effect of extreme heat.
direct = heat stroke, heart attack
indirect = (ozone and particulate) pollution, lung problems
Rising motion in the Hadley circulation is located at the __________ . Sinking motion in the Hadley circulation is located at the __________ .
Intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) ; horse latitudes/subtropics/30° N/S.
Name two downstream impacts of droughts.
Fire; habitat loss; decreased water quality; less hydropower (and thus more GHG emissions); and more
What does the decimal number in the SSP scenarios stand for? (e.g., 8.5 in SSP5-8.5)
Radiative forcing in W/m2 in this scenario by 2100
Which sector is responsible for most of Seattle's GHG emissions?
Transportation (58% in 2022)
Humid areas experience cooler summer days than dry areas because of _______ . However, humid areas experience warmer summer nights than dry areas because of ________ .
evaporative cooling ; water vapor's greenhouse effect
Name two of the three main contributors to monsoon rainfall.
movement of the ITCZ; differential heating of land and ocean; orographic lift (upslope winds)
The consensus is that climate change will intensify the water cycle, making wet seasons wetter and dry seasons drier. If this is the consensus, why is it so hard to project future trends in floods and droughts?
What is the procedure for conducting an extreme-event attribution study?
run multiple simulations with/without a certain forcing (e.g., present-day CO2); determine how much more likely the event was relative to pre-industrial age, accounting for internal variability
Snowball Earth is caused by a runaway _____ feedback
ice albedo