ERS 121 Study Guide for Exam 1. Lecture 1. Ice Age Theory 1. Where did the ice age theory originate?

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1 Lecture 1. Ice Age Theory 1. Where did the ice age theory originate? ERS 121 Study Guide for Exam 1 2. Where did J. P. Perraudin live? What did he suggest? 3. Who was Ignace Venetz? 4. Who was Jean de Charpentier? 5. Who was Louis Agassiz? What did he suggest? 6. Who was Roald Amundsen? 7. Who was Robert Scott? 8. Outline the differences between strategies of the British and Norwegian Expeditions in the race to be first to reach the South Pole. 9. Who was Ernest Shackleton? 10. Who was Thomas Crean? Lecture 2. From dinosaurs to wooly mammoths 1. When did the 3 step-like cooling events of the Cenozoic occur? 2. What was the overall trend in global temperature since the Eocene (52 million years ago)? 3. Has there always been a greenhouse effect on Earth? 4. The onset of northern hemisphere glaciation in the late Cenozoic was at about million years ago. 5. Name two possible causes for the global cooling trend that has occurred since 50 million years ago. 6. What is the approximate shape of the near 100,000-year glacial cycle that dominates the past 900,000 years? 7. The dominant cycle of climate change over the last 900,000 years is about thousand years. 8. Snow that falls in Antarctica is (depleted or enriched) in oxygen During the last million years, how frequent were interglacials? 10. How many natural isotopes of oxygen are there? 11. At the last glacial maximum (LGM) the world ocean was (depleted or enriched) in oxygen Between 2.5 and 1 million years ago what was the dominant cycle of climate change is about thousand years. Lecture 3. Origin of the Universe and the solar system 1. Who was Nicolaus Copernicus? What did he prove? 2. Who was Johannes Kepler? What did he do? 3. Who was Galileo Galilei? What did he do? 4. What shape is the orbit of Earth?

2 5. What was the "Big Bang"? 6. What is the geocentric theory? 7. What is the heliocentric theory? 8. The sun is an average main sequence star. What is the typical life span of this kind of star? 9. Name three types of galaxies. 10. The age of the universe is approximately billion years. 11. How do we know that the universe is expanding? 12. Earth is approximately billion years old. 13. How many planets are in the solar system? List them. 14. By what process do stars generate energy? 15. What is the redshift? Lecture 4. The glacial world 1. Identify by name the ice sheets in the northern hemisphere at the Last Glacial Maximum. 2. Name the principal components of an ice sheet. 3. What are ice shelves? 4. What are ice streams? 5. Given a map of the Antarctica, label the East and West Antarctic Ice Sheets. Label ice streams, flow lines, ice shelves, domes and divides. 6. What is a terrestrial ice sheet? 7. What is a marine ice sheet? 8. What is the snowline or ELA (equilibrium line altitude) on a glacier? 9. What large ice masses existed in Europe at the last glacial maximum? 10. What major ice sheets formed in the Northern Hemisphere at the last glacial maximum? Which ones were marine ice sheets? 11. Globally, the ELA has risen about meters since the last glacial maximum. 12. How much cooler than today was the land surface of Earth at the last glacial maximum? Lecture 5. Glacial landscapes of Maine 1. What is a cirque? Where are cirques located in Maine? 2. What is a glacial erratic? 3. What is an esker? 4. What is eustatic sea level? 5. What is glaciomarine sediment? 6. What is meant by a landscape of subareal scouring? 7. What is outwash? 8. What is relative sea level?

3 9. What is till? 10. Was global sea level at the Last Glacial Maximum lower or higher than it is now? By how much? 11. What are striations? 12. List three types of deposits left by glaciers in Maine. 13. What are the characteristic features of a roche moutonnée? 14. Explain two fundamental ways in which a mountain glacier differs from an ice sheet? 15. How thick was the ice that covered Maine at the Last Glacial Maximum? 16. Define the Last Glacial Maximum. 17. Define the Termination. 18. What is the difference between absolute and relative sea level? 19. What is frost shattered bedrock, and what is one location in Maine where is this landform found? Lecture 6. Cro-Magnon Europe 1. Who were Cro-Magnon humans? 2. Who were the first modern humans to enter Europe? When? Why do we consider them to be modern humans? 3. Where did trees grow in Europe during the last ice age maximum? 4. What type of vegetation did Cro-Magnon humans see in northern Europe? 5. How did humans living in Europe stay warm during the last glacial period? 6. When did humans invent art? music? religion? 7. When did humans first arrive in Siberia? 8. What is a polar desert? 9. What is a termination? Lecture 7. Heating the earth: radiation balance 1. If the average temperature of a star decreased, the wavelength of peak solar emission would: (1) shift to a longer wavelength, (2) shift to a shorter wavelength, (3) remain the same, (4) impossible to tell from given information 2. If the average temperature of the sun increased, the wavelength of peak solar emission would: (1) shift to a longer wavelength, (2) shift to a shorter wavelength, (3) remain the same, (4) impossible to tell from given information 3. The sun emits the greatest intensity of radiation in the portion of the spectrum. 4. In what portion of the electromagnetic spectrum does Earth emit the greatest intensity of radiation? 5. What is the solar constant? How many watts per square meter is it? 6. What is albedo? 7. What is the approximate planetary albedo for Earth? 8. Why are tropical regions warmer than polar regions?

4 Lecture 8. The structure and composition of Earth s atmosphere 1. What two gases make up 99% of Earth's atmosphere? 2. Earth s atmosphere is approximately % nitrogen and % oxygen. 3. As air rises, its temperature adiabatically. 4. In the troposphere, the air temperature normally: (1) decreases with increasing height, (2) increases with increasing height, (3) remains constant, (4) cannot be measured 5. In the stratosphere, the air temperature normally:, (1) decreases with increasing height, (2) increases with increasing height, (3) remains constant, (4) cannot be measured 6. The dry adiabatic lapse rate is C/km. 7. The moist adiabatic lapse rate is less than the dry adiabatic lapse rate because is released as water vapor condenses. 8. A typical rate of temperature decrease with increasing altitude in the middle latitude troposphere, known as the environmental lapse rate, is C/km. 9. As air temperature increases, the capacity of air to hold water vapor: (1) decreases, (2) increases, (3) remains constant 10. Which one of the following correctly expresses relationships among pressure, temperature and density of air? (1) density is proportional to temperature, density is proportional to pressure (2) density is inversely proportional to temperature, density is proportional to pressure (3) density is proportional to temperature, density is inversely proportional to pressure (4) density is inversely proportional to temperature, density is inversely proportional to pressure 11. What is relative humidity? 12. What is latent heat? 13. Much of Tibet lies at altitudes over 5000 meters, where the pressure is about 500 millibars. At such altitudes, the Tibetans are above roughly of the air molecules in the atmosphere. 14. The average atmospheric pressure at sea level is approximately millibars. 15. What is hydrostatic balance? 16. Is the winter--summer temperature contrast greater in Maine or Minnesota? Lecture 9. The structure and composition of Earth s oceans 1. The average salinity of seawater is parts per thousand (by weight). 2. The density of seawater is primarily a function of and. 3. What is a stratified fluid? 4. Ocean water is stratified as a result of differences that are related to salinity and temperature. 5. Approximately how deep is the ocean surface mixed layer? 6. What is the thermocline? (1) the coldest part of the ocean, (2) the hottest part of the ocean, (3) the zone of greatest temperature change, (4) the zone of greatest salinity change

5 Lecture 10. Greenhouse effect and global warming 1. What is a greenhouse gas. 2. List three greenhouse gases. 3. The most important greenhouse gas in Earth's atmosphere is 4. With greenhouse gases at present-day levels, the globally averaged surface temperature on Earth is approximately degrees Celsius. 5. Without greenhouse gases, globally averaged surface temperature on Earth would be approximately degrees Celsius. 6. Everything else being equal, a gradual increase in atmospheric CO2 would most likely bring about: (1) no change in global climate (2) a decrease in evaporation from the earth s oceans (3) a marked decrease in plant growth (4) an increase in surface temperature 7. What has been the trend in the concentration of atmospheric CO2 during the 20th century? 8. What is the present-day concentration of atmospheric CO2 in parts per million by volume (ppmv)? 9. What was the pre-industrial concentration of atmospheric CO2 in parts per million by volume (ppmv)? 10. What was the concentration of atmospheric CO2 at the LGM in parts per million by volume (ppmv)?