Botkin Environmental Science Earth as Living Planet 8th txtbk

460 CHAPTER 20 The Atmosphere, Climate, and Global Warming
STUDY QUESTIONS
1. Summarize the scientific data that global warming as a
result of human activity is occuring.
2. What is the composition of Earth’s atmosphere, and
how has life affected the atmosphere during the past
several billion years?
3. What is the greenhouse effect? What is its importance
to global climate?
4. What is an anthropogenic greenhouse gas? Discuss the
various anthropogenic greenhouse gases in terms of
their potential to cause global warming.
5. What are some of the major negative feedback cycles
and positive feedback cycles that might increase or decrease
global warming?
6. In terms of the effects of global warming, do you
think that a change in climate patterns and storm
frequency and intensity is likely to be more serious
than a global rise in sea level? Illustrate your answer
with specific problems and areas where the problems
are likely to occur.
7. How would you refute or defend the statement that
the best adjustment to global warming is to do little or
nothing and learn to live with change?
FURTHER READING
Fay, J. A., and D. Golumb, Energy and the Environment (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2002). See Chapter 10 on global
warming.
IPCC, Climate Change 2007. The Physical Science Basis (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2007). A report by the international
panel that was awarded the Nobel Prize for its work on
global warming
Lovejoy, T.E., and Lee Hannah, Climate Change and Biodiversity
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005). Discusses,
continent by continent, what has happened to biodiversity in
the past when climate has changed.
Rohli, R.V., and A. J. Vega, Climatology (Sudbury, MA: Jones &
Bartlett, 2008). An introduction to the basic science of how the
atmosphere works.
Weart, S.R., The Discovery of Global Warming (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2008). Tells how the possibility of
global warming was discovered, and the history of the controversies
about it.