EPS 80 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Mass Wasting, Snowball Earth, Younger Dryas

• School: Berkeley
• Department: Earth And Planetary Science
• Course: EPS 80
• Professor: Scott Hassler

Document Summary

98% of climate experts agree humans are causing global warming. Ideology (eg. anti science, anti intelligence stance of some sects and parties) Human perceptions (climate change is slower than we tend to notice, and often happens far away) The issue is enhanced by poor science education and hence science literacy. Here, focus on the science and what it says. Weather- the state of the atmosphere at a given point in time (temperature, precipitation, winds, barometric pressure) Climate- the weather of a region through time. Gather data (look at nasa eyes if possible) Produce evidence of climate change through time. Get evidence of past climates (proxy data) from: Fossils, particularly marine plankton and corals, pollen record temperature information, climate shifts; Effective for up to last 140 ma, better for last 5 ma. Event layers ( eg. global scale volcanic eruptions) But consistent behavior in ice, fossils, tree rings, etc. Permit climate reconstruction and testing of climate models.