Download Principles of Climatology Exam 3 Review Sheet and more Exams Climatology in PDF only on Docsity! Principles of Climatology (GEOG 31064) Dr. Scott Sheridan This is a review sheet for EXAM 3 to be held FRIDAY, MAY 9th, 2008 from 7:45-10am. This exam will be of a similar length and style as the first two exams. 12. Paleoclimatology • Why do we study paleoclimatology? • What qualities do we look for in a paleo record? • Understand the basics behind proxy records, historical records, instrumental records, and satellite records. What are the relative advantages and disadvantages of the methods disussed? Around how far back in history can we go with each of these different sets of records? • What do we look for in sediments and ice cores and how do they tell us about the climate of the past? • What does the record of the climate look like over the past half million years? How does the relative speed of the onset of glaciation compare with the demise of one? • What was the spatial pattern of temperature differences during the last ice age like? • When did the last ice age begin to end? • What is the Younger Dryas and what is its significance? • How does an ice sheet affect atmospheric circulation? • What’s the climate of the past millennium been like? Past 100 years? • Which are warming more, maximum or minimum temperatures? 13. Causes of climate variability • What are some long-term non-cyclical agents of climate variability? • How does the earth’s orbit vary? Understand the significance of the three different measures, and how each affects radiation distribution. • With orbital parameters, why is northern mid-latitude summer insolation important? • How do Dansgaard-Oeschger events and Heinrich events relate to the thermohaline circulation? What are some of their effects? Why might one tend to lead to the other? • How does solar variability affect the earth’s climate? • For the North Atlantic Oscillation and Pacific Decadal Oscillation patterns, know: o What exactly do they measure? o On what time scale do they vary? o What climate anomalies are associated with the different phases of these? • For the PDO, how is it different from El Nino? • What effects do volcanoes have on the climate? 14. The twentieth century and human activities • How do humans affect the climate on the large scale? • Of all the following human-caused changes in atmosphere and earth’s surface, know generally how they enter the atmosphere, how long they stay within the atmosphere, and what their effect on the radiative balance is generally believed to be (positive or negative): o Carbon Dioxide o Methane o Sulfate aerosols o Ground-level and stratospheric ozone
