If global temperature increases as much as 4° C by 2100, what global effects might you anticipate as a result?
What will be an ideal response?
Some possible answers:
· Growing seasons for agricultural products will become longer, possibly increasing yields.
· Evaporation will increase, causing more droughts and the drying up of lakes and reservoirs. [Note: Fewer students recognize that increased temperatures invigorate all aspects of the hydrologic cycle, so that increased evaporation will also mean increased precipitation. However, since the evaporation and precipitation processes do not necessarily happen equally at the same locations, some places can expect drought whereas other can anticipate increased rainfall.]
· Less snowfall in mountains during the winter, which will impact recreational winter sports and tourism and also diminish the amount of snowmelt runoff in springtime, which is critical for crop irrigation in many regions.
· Geographic ranges of plants and animals will change as temperatures change, allowing warm-climate plants and animals to expand to higher latitudes and higher elevations. Cold-climate adapted land plants and animals may go extinct, however, as the necessary conditions for their survival disappears at the polar edges of continents.
· Tropical diseases and parasites will expand north and south from the equator to afflict larger regions, including places where populations do not have immunities.
· Hurricanes will become more numerous or more powerful, or both, because hurricane formation and power rely on warm sea-surface temperatures.
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Explain how radioactive decay has always warmed the earth from the inside, and nuclear fusion has always warmed the earth from the outside.
A. The inner Earth is made of fissioning heavy elements, while the sun is made of lighter fusing elements. B. Much heat was released as matter coalesced to form the earth. This heat resulted in the production of radioactive isotopes, which still reside within the earth today and are a source of internal heat. Our primary external source of heat is from the fusion of hydrogen within the sun. C. Radioactive elements have been within Earth since it was created while the sun is made of fusing hydrogen atoms. D. All of the above are reasonable answers.
What surface mining procedure would most likely be used to mine coal on hilly terrain?
A. open-pit mining B. contour strip mining C. area strip mining D. strip mining E. room and pillar mining
People are more productive in more developed countries because they
A) work harder. B) have access to more technology. C) have a low amount of value added per person. D) are consistently better educated. E) understand their jobs better than workers in less developed countries.
When a hurricane moves onto land, it rapidly loses its punch; that is, the storm declines in intensity. Which of the factors listed below contribute to this loss of punch?
A) heating from below by the land surface B) formations of mesocyclones within the storm disrupt the circulation C) lack of warm, moist air to feed latent heat driven convection D) disruption of outflow by strong winds aloft from the jet stream