1. How soon will the Earth's stratospheric ozone be destroyed by human-induced effects?

2. What is the atmosphere?

3. What type of system is the atmosphere? Simple? Complex? Static? Dynamic?

4. Define climate.

5. Define weather.

6. What is the bulk composition of the atmosphere?

7. How much more water do the oceans have than the atmosphere?

8. True or False. Water cycles into and out of the atmosphere faster than other components (via evaporation/precipitation), and this is an essential part of the surface system, in that the water cycle is key to life on the Earth.

9. Is ozone important when when considering the atmospheric volumes moving around in weather patterns?

10. What critical role do ozone and other trace gases have?

11. Is the distribution of gases in the satmosphere uniform?

12. What is the surface temperature of the sun?

13. The specific temperature of the sun causes the peak energy radiated to be near the visible light band, with diminishing ultraviolet and infrared radiation at shorter and longer wavelengths respectively. Why is this not surprising?

14. The Earth is much cooler than the sun, with a surface temperature of?

15. The radiation from the earth is shifted way toward which spectrum?

16. Describe the asymmetry of radiation input into the atmosphere that is key to the Greenhouse effect which occurs on this, and all other planets with atmospheres.

17. What are the three main mechanisms of heat transfer in any physical system?

18. What are the most important processes of heat transfer in the atmosphere?

19. What range of interactions can Incident energy have, either from above or below the atmosphere?

20. What are the main causes of reflection of incident energy, either from within the atmosphere or from the Earth's surface.

21. Why do clouds, snow and ice appear white?

22. How do you calculate albedo?

23. How can we estimate the total reflection of sunlight from the Earth, and hence its albedo?

24. This is the process by which molecules in the atmosphere interact with electromagnetic photons with different frequencies and either do or do not absorb the energy and become excited (heated).

25. What are the gases that preferentially absorb electromagnetic radiation in the infrared band called?

26. What are some examples of important Greenhouse gases?

27. Water and carbon dioxide are particularly effective in absorbing the infrared band (remember, that is where the Earth's radiation is peaked), while ozone is very effective at absorbing which type of radiation?

28. How has the transparency of the atmosphere to visible light and the fact that the sun preferentially radiates visible light strongly affected life on Earth?

29. Why does the sky appear blue?

30. Why do sunsets and sunrises appear red?

40. Why does the Sun have a yellowish color?

41. The heating of the atmosphere is very non-uniform, since there is a much greater input of solar radiation where?

42. The surface heating has a latitudinal zonation, with hottest sea-surface temperatures in what latitude range?

43. What is the key result of the non-uniform heating of the atmosphere and surface

44. Lateral gradients in pressure cause the gas in the atmosphere to flow laterally. Why is the convective motion not simple in geometry?

45. Within the large-scale patterns of Hadley Cells and Jet Streams, there are many complexities of the regional dynamics. In large part a result of interaction with what?

46. Topography effects on atmospheric circulation are called what?

47. Give an example of an orographic effect.

48. What is ozone?

49. What effect does pollution have on ozone?

50. More than 20 years ago the U.S. adopted a ban on SuperSonic Transports. Why?

51. What more insidious human activity was rapidly destroying the stratospheric ozone?

52. What are CFC's and ClO?

53. In 1992 a massive cloud of ClO was detected over Europe, with 30-40% loss of ozone by April of that year. What March, 1992 event which ejected gases into the stratosphere appears to have compounded the chlorine content of the stratosphere?

54. Is there a way to cleanse the atmosphere of ClO?

55. While ozone is a very minor component of the atmosphere, it plays what major role?

56. It appears that humanity has unknowingly initiated what massive test experiment?

57. The trace gases in the atmosphere selectively absorb the incident radiation. Which gases preferentially absorb infrared radiation?

58. What percent of all Earth radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere?

59. If we increase the trace gas content of the atmosphere, by adding carbon dioxide, methane or water, we can enhance the efficiency of absorption of infrared radiation, further heating up the atmosphere and the surface. This is called

60. Which gas is the major greenhouse gas?

61. What are the sources and sinks of this carbon dioxide?

62. Tracking CO2 content of the atmosphere over the past 40 years reveals a steady, 10% increase in the CO2 content, in large part due to what?

63. If the increase in CO2 and other Greenhouse gases is increasing the efficiency of the Greenhouse effect, the planet could be warming up. What is one expected consequence of this?

64. A plot of sea level over the past 100 years that globally there has been about a 60 mm increase in sea level. What two things contribute to this increase?

65. What are the two feedbacks that keep a Greenhouse from running away?

66. What is paleoclimatology?

67. Define the current issue of Global Warming.

68. How do handle the question of global warming?

69. Given that the current situation (of Global Warming) is of course different than any previous case, we hope to understand the system well enough to predict the expected effects of what will happen on a human time scale, and to effectuate whatever level of mitigation we can. Much of the debate is hard science, but there is also what major public policy element?

70. We must pose and resolve questions such as what?

71. To approach the issue of past climates we must have measurements that tell us how conditions have changed with time. One approach that seems sensible is to look at large ice bodies, to see what?

72. There is an active debate about whether Global Warming is actually occurring, or are these fluctuations all local effects. There are great difficulties in measuring the global average, so this is a controversial area. What well-publicized attempt to track ocean temperatures directly is perhaps the most promising approach to a global thermometer, and should help to resolve the issue of whether there is actually a secular warming trend?

73. Give examples of a well-calibrated geologic thermometers?

74. The forcing functions, which control global climate are numerous. Name the most important.

75. The types of geological thermometers differ in continental and oceanic rocks. What do we look for on land?

76. The types of geological thermometers differ in continental and oceanic rocks. What do we look at in the Oceans?

77. How can pollen be used as a thermometer?

78. What are stable isotopes?

79. What are the isotopes of oxygen?

80. What are the isotopes of hydrogen?

81. What is the mass range of water?

82. How is evaporation, in which solar radiation heats a water body, causing some water molecules to vaporize and enter the atmosphere as water vapor influenced by gravity?

83. Why is Glacier ice preferentially enriched in 16O (light oxygen) relative to the ocean?

84. So, if we could monitor the 18O/16O ratio of the ocean as a function of time, we would see variations depending on whether glaciers are growing or shrinking. What does it sugest if the ratio is smaller?

85. So, if we could monitor the 18O/16O ratio of the ocean as a function of time, we would see variations depending on whether glaciers are growing or shrinking. What does it sugest if the ratio is larger?

86. How do we track the isotope content as a function of time?

87. If we look at the long time fluctuations in isotopes for the last million years, for which there are many observations, what do we find?

88. When did the last ice age end?

The last ice age ended about 18,000 years ago,

89. It is estimated that to sustain the huge ice pack on the Earth for the 50,000 years during the last ice age was how many degrees cooler than now?

90. Cyclical variation in temperature and ice volume had components of variation with what periods in the last million years?

91. Are the fluctuations over the past 35 million years much stronger than seen in the past million years?

92. How much warmer were temperatures 50 million years ago?

93. During what period were the Earth's temperatures the highest?

94. What effect did this period of high temperature have on the oceans?

95. What causes climate variations of tens to hundreds of millions of years

96. What causes climate variations on the scale of 10-100,000 years?

97. What causes climate variations on the shorter time scale of 1-10 million years?

98. What causes climate variations on the shorter time scale of decades?