Greenhouse
The amount of carbon dioxide for which an individual or group is responsible
What is carbon footprint?
This affects the climate by releasing gases and particles that can block sunlight and cool an area
What is volcanic eruptions?
Melting ice caps and rising sea levels are evidence that this is happening
What is global warming?
The major effect that a warming climate can have on human health
Heat stroke
Planting large forests would help remove this out of the atmosphere
Carbon dioxide
List three of the greenhouse gases
Carbon dioxide, ozone, water vapor, nitrous oxide, methane
Presence of mountains, lakes, and rivers describe an areas
topography
Rising global surface temperatures indicate this
Global warming
The largest source of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions
What is electrical generation?
Name of the plan put in place at the 21st United Nations climate change conference in 2015
The Paris Agreement
The effect of having no greenhouse layer in the stratosphere
Warm water is drawn away from the equator toward the poles by this process
thermohaline circulation
The name for the evidence obtained to predict past climates
What are proxy indicators?
The name of the process that occurs when warming and acidic ocean waters kill off algae in coral reefs
What is coral bleaching?
Instead of directly reducing emissions, companies can make a voluntary payment to a group that reduces or curbs greenhouse gases.
What is a carbon offset?
The greenhouse layer absorbs heat from the sun and then does this
Slowly releases it down into Earth's atmosphere, warming the planet
This is the name used to describe regions of latitude that are not polar or tropical
What is temperate?
The three ways/methods discussed in the chapter that we use to predict past climates
Ice cores, Sediment samples, Tree rings
The three ways climate change can affect organisms as mentioned in the chapter (besides coral reefs)
Shifting habitats, migration shifts, and melting ice
System of emission allowances or “emission caps” that can be sold or traded to other factories, gives companies incentive to reduce emissions
What is cap-and-trade?
How mountains affect the amount of precipitation
On the windward side exposed to global winds, clouds can form and precipitation will fall. On the leeward side, clouds cannot reach over the mountain and it is typically very dry.
What is the role of global/prevailing wind in determining climate?
Winds carry warm air away from the equator and cool air away from the poles
These two phenomena are disruptions to normal climate patterns caused by variations in the typical interactions between the ocean and the atmosphere.
What are La Nina and El Nino?
How climate change affects water supply (2 reasons)
Rising sea levels promote saltwater contamination in aquifers; melting ice caps reduce freshwater availability
The major criticism of the Kyoto Protocol
It only required developed nations to participate and reduce emissions