Hard Climate Change Trivia Questions
What is “climate change”?
A: Climate change is a change in the statistical
distribution of weather patterns when that
change lasts for an extended period of time
(i.e., decades to millions of years).
Climate change may refer to a change in average
what?
A: Weather conditions.
Climate change may also refer to the time
variation of weather around what?
A: Longer-term average conditions (i.e., more or
fewer extreme weather events).
Climate change is caused by what factors?
A: Biotic processes, variations in solar
radiation received by Earth, plate tectonics,
volcanic eruptions and certain human activities.
Scientists actively work to understand past and
future climate by using observations and what?
A: Theoretical models.
Fluctuations over periods shorter than a few
decades, such as El Niño, do not what?
A: Represent climate change.
On the broadest scale, the rate at which energy
is received from the Sun and the rate at which
it is lost to space determine what?
A: The equilibrium temperature and climate of
Earth.
This energy is distributed around the globe by
what?
A: Winds, ocean currents, and other mechanisms
to affect the climates of different regions.
Factors that can shape climate are called what?
A: Climate forcings or "forcing mechanisms".
These include processes such as what?
A: Variations in solar radiation, variations in
the Earth's orbit, variations in the albedo or
reflectivity of the continents and oceans,
mountain-building and continental drift and
changes in greenhouse gas concentrations.
There are a variety of climate change feedbacks
that can what?
A: Either amplify or diminish the initial
forcing.
Scientists generally define the five components
of earth's climate system to include what?
A: Atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere,
lithosphere (restricted to the surface soils,
rocks, and sediments), and biosphere.
The ocean and atmosphere can work together to
spontaneously what?
A: Generate internal climate variability that
can persist for years to decades at a time.
Alterations to ocean processes such as
thermohaline circulation play a key role in
doing what?
A: Redistributing heat in the world's oceans.
Due to the long timescales of this circulation,
ocean temperature at depth is still adjusting to
the effects of what?
A: The Little Ice Age which occurred between the
1600 and 1800s.
Life affects climate through its role in the
carbon and water cycles and through such
mechanisms as what?
A: Albedo, evapotranspiration, cloud formation,
and weathering.
Slight variations in Earth's orbit lead to
changes in the seasonal distribution of what?
A: Sunlight reaching the Earth's surface and how
it is distributed across the globe.
There is very little change to the area-averaged
annually averaged sunshine; but there can be
strong changes in what?
A: The geographical and seasonal distribution.
The Sun is the predominant source of what for
the earth?
A: Energy input.
Other sources include geothermal energy from the
Earth's core, and heat from what?
A: The decay of radioactive compounds.
Three to four billion years ago, the Sun emitted
what percent of the power as it does today?
A: 70%.