ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE EXAM 3 VOCABULARY Silent Spring DDT Malaria Energy Kinetic Energy Potential Energy Sources 2nd Law of Thermodynamics 1st Law of Efficiency 2nd Law of Efficiency EROI Consumption Published in 1962 and written by Rachel Carson it catalogued the environmental impacts of indiscriminate DDT spraying in the United States and questioned the logic of releasing large amounts of chemicals into the environment without a sufficient understanding of their effects on ecology or human health A colorless crystalline tasteless and almost odorless organ chloride known for its insecticidal properties A mosquito borne disease caused by a parasite People with malaria often experience fever chills and flu like illness Left untreated they may develop severe complications and die A universal and fundamental quantity that describes fundamental physical interactions It is conserved being neither created nor destroyed The energy that it possesses due to its motion It is defined as the work needed to accelerate a body of a given mass from rest to its stated velocity The energy stored in an object due to its position in a force field or in a system due to its configuration With respect to storage compartments within a system such as the atmosphere or land refers to a compartment that donates to another compartment The donating compartment is the source the receiving compartment the sink Energy always tends to go from a more usable higher quality form to a less usable lower quality form When you use energy you lower its quality Deals with the amount of energy without any consideration of the quality or availability of the energy Refers to how well matched the energy end use is with the quality of the energy source The ratio of the amount of usable energy acquired from a particular energy resource to the amount of energy expended to obtain that energy resource Organisms of an ecological food chain that receive energy by consuming other organisms Formally referred to as Heterotrophs Such Conservation Cogeneration Climate Change Sun Earth radiation Greenhouse Gases Relative Absorption CO2 levels Temperature Proxies IPCC s hypothesis organisms may consume by various means including predation parasitization and biodegradation An ethic of resource use allocation and protection Its primary focus is upon maintaining the health of the natural world fisheries habitats and biological diversity The use of a heat engine or power station to simultaneously generate electricity and useful heat 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 weather conditions or in the time variation of weather around longer term average conditions The amount of radiant energy emitted from the sun to the earth Solar radiation reaches Earth with more than enough energy in a single square meter to illuminate five 60 watt lightbulbs if all the sunlight could be captured and converted to electricity The suite of gases that produce a greenhouse effect such as carbon dioxide methane and water vapor Refers to spectroscopic techniques that measure the absorption of radiation as a function of frequency or wavelength due to its interaction with a sample The sample absorbs energy i e photons from the radiating field There is no empirical evidence but there is cause to believe that these levels are rising due to human activity A comparative objective measure of hot and cold The comparison is through detection of heat radiation particle velocity kinetic energy or most commonly by the bulk behavior of a thermometric material Preserved physical characteristics of the past that stand in for direct measurements as statistical proxies to enable scientists to reconstruct the climatic conditions that prevailed during much of the Earth s history We are certain of the following emissions resulting from human activities are substantially increasing the atmospheric concentrations of the Urban Heat Island Effect Empirical Evidence Hurricanes Volcanoes El Nino Albedo Milankovich Cycles Sunspot Activity Kyoto Protocol Cap Trade greenhouse gases CO2 methane CFCs and nitrous oxide These increases will enhance the greenhouse effect resulting on average in an Additional warming of the Earth s surface of about 0 3 oC per decade Describes built up areas that are hotter than nearby rural areas A source of knowledge acquired by means of observation or experimentation The term comes from the Greek word for experience A rapidly rotating storm system characterized by a low pressure center strong winds and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain A rupture on the crust of a planetary mass object such as the Earth which allows hot lava volcanic ash and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface Associated with a band of warm ocean water that develops in the central and east central equatorial Pacific Whiteness or reflected sunlight in turn fromalbus white is the diffuse reflectivity or reflecting power of a surface It is the ratio of reflected radiation from the surface to incident radiation upon it Describes the collective effects of changes in the Earth s movements upon its climate named after Serbian geophysicist and astronomer Milutin Milankovi who worked on it during his internment as a First World War prisoner of war POW Temporary phenomena on the photosphere of the Sun that appear visibly as dark spots compared to surrounding regions They are caused by intense magnetic activity which inhibits convection by an effect comparable to the eddy current brake forming areas of reduced surface temperature An international treaty which extends the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change that commits State Parties to reduce greenhouse gases emissions based on the premise that global warming exists and man made CO2 emissions have caused it An environmental policy tool that delivers results with a mandatory cap on emissions while providing sources flexibility in how they comply Successful programs reward innovation efficiency and early action and provide strict environmental accountability without inhibiting economic growth