Lectures week 4.
Tuesday:
Exam 1 is today (October 21) and covers Chapter 1 through 6 plus lectures. It is closed book and closed notes. You will need a green scantron ( 882-E from bookstore) and a #2 pencil. Following are pages from the exam given last year. Please decide what you want to choose for your term project and put the title of your term project on your Exam 1 scantron form along with a four letter codeword that we can use to post the results of your exams and final grade.
Thursday:
Chapter 7 is about Ocean and Climate. Solar radiation heats the surface of the earth mostly at the equator, and an equal amount of energy is lost by radiation to outer space at the poles. The ocean and atmosphere circulate and interact in complex ways to distribute this heat uniformly...with results that vary from time to time. Past climatic regimes have been very different from the present. During the Cretaceous period 100 million years ago, when the Atlantic was half formed, the temperature at the north and south poles was 9 degrees C, compared to -20 and -40 C at present. The present climate is called glacial because we have large ice masses at the poles of the planet at present. However, we can see from history that climate can switch between vastly different metastable states...that is, between tropical and glacial. In the past, astronomical events probably triggered the changes. In the future, political decisions may play a role. It is conceivable that the next major climate shift for the planet Earth may be triggered by mankind. Some climate change facts are:
