Page 342 - Geosystems An Introduction to Physical Geography 4th Canadian Edition
P. 342
11
306 part II The Water, Weather, and Climate Systems
concepts
key learning
Climate Change
After reading the chapter, you should be able to:
• Describe scientific tools used to study paleoclimatology.
• Discuss several natural factors that influence earth’s climate, and describe
climate feedbacks, using examples.
• List the key lines of evidence for present global climate change, and
summarize the scientific evidence for anthropogenic forcing of climate.
• Discuss climate models, and summarize several climate projections.
• Describe several mitigation measures to slow rates of climate change.
in March 2013, scientists began the fifth year of Operation iceBridge, naSa’s airborne, multi-instrument survey of earth’s rapidly changing polar ice. This view of Saunders island and Wolstenholme Fjord in northwest greenland in april 2013 shows arctic sea
ice as air and ocean temperature warm. Thinner seasonal ice appears clearer in the foreground; thicker multiyear ice appears whiter in the distance. Much of the arctic Ocean is now dominated by seasonal ice, which melts rapidly every summer. ice melt in the polar regions and at high altitudes is an important indicator of earth’s changing climate, the subject of this chapter. [naSa/ Michael Studinger.]
