GEOG1710 1nd Edition Lecture 8 Outline of Last Lecture I What is Climate II Current Climates III Five Types of Climates IV How Climate Effects Ecosystems Outline of Current Lecture I Variation in Climate II Climate Change Current Lecture Mountains are major physical barriers that affect the flow of air masses They cause orographic precipitation Vegetation affects surface energy budget pasture have a higher albedo Why Does Climate Vary Over Time Tilt Year to year o La Ni a normal conditions cool water moves from East to West o El Nino water moves in opposite direction changes everything rain over the desert and drought over the rainforest and happens every 2 to 7 years Milankovitch Cycles o Variation in solar energy at polar regions o When polar ice accumulates cooling speeds up because ice albedo Climate Change Refers to a statistical significance variation in either the mean state of the climate or in its variation persisting for an extended period Current CO2 concentration is greater than in past 65 000 years Number doesn t matter it s how fast we get there These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor s lecture GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes not as a substitute Global mean surface temperature has increased about one degree since the beginning of the 20th century Warming has occurred people argue over the cause Climate change maybe due to natural internal process or external forces or to persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use Detection Global scale observation with instruments began in the mid 19 th century for temperature and other variations Important observations and satellite data available after 1950 Long term paleo climate reconstruction Critiques Natural variation in climate is normal Temperature recordings are biased because they are taken in urban areas Some places are cooling some warming
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