Atmospheric Changes
Terms
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- Ultraviolet (UV) radiation
- that part of the electromagnetic spectrum with wavelengths justshorter than visiblelight, a high energy form of radiation that can be lethal to organisms at high levels of exposure.
- Climate
- Determining factors : Temperature (average & extremems), Precipitation (average & seasonal)
- IPCC
- (United Nations) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, created in response to global warming, input from hundreds of scientists, provides the definitive scientific statement about global warming
- Solar Energy
- clouds & other materials reflect 31%, 69% absorbed and used
- CFC replacements
- HFC's : do not attack ozone, greenhouse gas HCFC's: attack ozone but are less destructive than CFC's
- Kyoto Protocol
- 1997 established legally binding timetables to cut emissions of greenhouse gases (US support withdrawn 2001 under GW Bush)
- Acid Rain
- Secondary pollutants formed fom sulfur diozide and nitrogen oxides that react with water to produce diclute solutions of sulfuric acid, nitric acid and nitrous acid.
- CFC's
- chloroflourocarbons human made organic compounds containing Cl and Flourine several industrial and commercial applications but are now banned (1978) because they attack ozone layer
- Equatorial uplift
- Water evaporates from Equator ish and is moved by prevailing winds over landmasses/ other areas where it rains down
- infrared radiation
- Electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths longer than visible light but shorter than microwaves; percieved as invisible waves of heat energy
- Ozone thinning
- The removal of ozone fromt he stratosphere by human produced chemicals or natural processes
- Forest Decline
- a gradual deterioration and eventual death of many trees in a forest.
- cooling
- Sulfer Haze, days, weeks, months, aerosols cool atmosphere, not the solution however
- mitigation
- moderation or postponement of global warming through measures that buy us time to further our understanding of global warming and to pursue more permanent solutions, tree planting, carbon management
- Greenhouse Gasses
- The gasses that absorb infrared radiation; CO2, CH4 (methane), N2O (nitrous oxide, CFC's and Tropospheric O3
- Coriolis Effect
- tendency of moving air or water to be deflected from its path and swerve to the right in the Northern Hemisphere, and to the left in the southern hemisphere.
- carbon management
- ways to separate and capture the co2 produced during the combustion of fossil fuels and then sequester it from the atmosphere
- Effects of Acid Rain
- Corrosion of important monuments Washington monument, Mayan Ruins, aquatic animal populations, birds (thin eggshells), altered soil chemistry
- Precipitation
- Amt of water vapor in atmosphere, Geographic location & Topographic features
- Montreal Protocol
- 1987 agreement that stipulated 50% CFC production reduction by '98
- Enhanced Greenhouse Effect
- The additional warming that my be produced by human increased levels of gases that absorb infrared radiation
- Rain Shadow
- Arid/ semi- arid land that occurs on the far (leeward) side of a mountain. (Cascade Mts)
- Ecosystems at Greatest Risk
- Polar Seas, coral reefs, mountain ecosystems, coastal wetlands, tundra
- Acid Deposition
- type of air pollution that includes sulfuric and nitric acids in precipitation as well as dry acid particles that settle out of the air (acid rain, Robert Angus Smith)
- adaptation
- response to changes cause by global warming, implication that global warming in unavoidable, methods very expensive and practically hard