Chapters - The Climate System and Change

12 important questions on Chapters - The Climate System and Change

What is a Hadley cell?

Warm air and water rise, pooling at the equator, setting up circulation patterns typified by rising warm air or water near the equator and sinking cold air or water near the poles, with movement in between.

There are two Hadley cells between the equator and each pole.

What do the major ocean ciculation patterns look like?

They follow the wind patterns, forming large gyres with east-to-west flow along the equator and west-to-east flow at the midlatitudes.

What is the Gulf Stream?

The influence of the thermohaline circulation is especially strong in the North Atlantic, bringing in massive quantities of heat from the equator. This portion of the thermohaline circulation is known as the Gulf Stream.
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When do glacial periods end?

When the Gulf Stream strengthens, pumping energy northward to melt the ice sheets. This can be very abrubtly.

What is the Pacifci Decadal Oscillation?

Affects the North Pacific Ocean and switches states approximately every 10 years.

What is the The North Atlantic Oscillation/

Two modes, one in which arctic air pounds Europe and another in which European weather is considerably more pleasant.

What is the 'seasonal seesaw'?

As Northern Hemisphere plants die and release CO2 in the fall, plants in the Southern Hemisphere are taking up CO2 with the flush of new spring growth. However, landmasses in the north are far greater than those in the south, so Southern Hemisphere processes balance only a small part of the seasonal cycle in the north. A net global uptake of CO2 occurs in the Northern Hemisphere in spring, with net CO2 release in the Northern Hemisphere fall.

What factor can cause rapid climate change?

Shutdown of the thermohaline circulation.
Meltwater from land ice in Greenland and North America enters the North Atlantic during warming (Figure 2.19), causing the waters of the Gulf Stream to become less salty. This less saline water is less dense and thus cannot sink and complete the return trip to the equator. The thermohaline circulation shuts down, stopping transport of heat from the equator.

What is the important lessons for the future that the Younger Dryas holds?

Tt was caused by warming that led to ice melt and thermohaline shutdown.
An important question about future climate change due to greenhouse gas emissions is whether warming could again shut down thermohaline circulation.

What is the volocity of climate/temperature change?

The distance that has to be traveled over the surface of the Earth to maintain a certain temperature as climate changes.

Flat areas have a high velocity of climate change and mountains have a low velocity of climate change.

Why must an RCM must be embedded in a GCM to function

At its edges, the RCM needs information about conditions in neighboring cells. For instance, an RCM cannot simulate orographic rainfall unless it knows the amount of moisture entering the region. These neighbor cell conditions, or “boundary conditions,” are provided by the GCM in which the RCM is embedded

What are the  Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSP)?

A series of standard greenhouse gas concentrations for use in GCM simulations. Each SSP represents one possible trajectory for future greenhouse gas concentrations.

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