PHS-120-200 Global Climate Change Spring 2024 Flashcards

• Steps of the Scientific Method

  1. Observation

  2. Ask a question and formulate a hypothesis

  3. Conduct an experiment

  4. Analyze the data and draw conclusions
• Cryosphere

  Frozen water regions ex. Antartica, Greenland
• Paris Agreement criticism

  no penalties for non-compliance
• Paris Agreement

  •Goal of limiting temperature rise to 2°C above pre-industrial levels

  •Countries agreed to reduce GHGs to levels that would achieve goal
• What is the most recent major international agreement on climate change?

  Paris Agreement
• When was Paris Agreement signed

  2016
• Kyoto Protocol Results

  •Mixed results

  •Overall reduction, but largely due to collapse of manufacturing in the former Soviet Union

  •Two largest polluters were not required to reduce emissions

  -U.S. refused to ratify the treaty

  -China was a "developing" nation
• Kyoto Protocol

  •First major international agreement to address climate change

  •Recognized that countries have different capabilities to reduce greenhouse gases

  -Set gas reduction targets for 36 developed nations

  -Did not set targets for any other nations
• When was Kyoto Protocol adopted

  1997
• United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

  •Encouraged countries to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions and prevent human-induced climate change

  •Established a framework for how future climate agreements could be negotiated
• When and where was United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change adopted?

  Rio de Janeiro in 1992
• IPCC first report published in

  1990
• IPCC

  •most important scientific body addressing climate change

  •195 member nations

  •Synthesizes global climate change research

  •Predicts future effects of climate change
• IPCC stands for

  Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
• ocean effects of climate change

  Warmer temps, species range shifts and extinctions, ocean acidification, increased hypoxia, facilitation of invasive species, sea level rise, altered circulation
• potential effects of climate change

  Warmer or colder temps, more storms, intense storms, droughts, wildfires, species range shifts and extinctions, habitat shifts
• What is NOT scientific consensus?

  all the scientists we asked agreed
• Scientific Consensus

  all of the data points to this
• AGW stands for

  anthropogenic global warming