Assignment
Watch the Video - Earth the Operator's Manual. 2-3 sentences for each answer.
http://earththeoperatorsmanual.com/feature-video/earth-the-operators-manual
1. Record the breakdown of global energy use for fossil fuels versus other sources of energy below. Is it similar to the breakdown we have discussed in class related to the United States.
2. Using the analogy of the 100 Watt light bulb from the film, compare relative use of energy of several different countries to North America.
3. Briefly summarize the process of fossil fuel formation and formation of fossil fuels and its relationship to the carbon cycle. Why are fossil fuels ultimately an unsustainable energy resource?
4. Explain how CO2 (and water vapor) act as a greenhouse gas. The video section around Minute 10:00 along will aid in this question.
5. Explain how the layers of in a glacier can give us a record of time and the climatehistory contained in the glacier (Watch Minute 13 where Richard Alley is hanging in a glacier! )
6. Explain how changes in the cycles of the Sun and Earth can have a long term effect on climate, such as periodic Ice Ages.
7. Explain how the ice cores are used to create a record of both carbon dioxide and temperature going back hundreds of thousands of years.
8. What is the pattern seen in the ice core records of carbon dioxide and temperature in terms of high and low periods over the past hundreds of thousands of years (before modern human history?
9. What happens to CO2 levels after the Industrial Revolution? (Note: this is not just compiled from ice core data but current air measurements).
10. What evidence is there that the current increase in CO2 is not related to volcanoes? Think about the volume of CO2 each releases along with the evidence ofCO2 and O2 levels.
11. The final tricky step is directly relating the increase in CO2 to the burning of fossil fuels. Explain how isotopes (various forms) of carbon are used to tie the increasing proportion of CO2 n the atmosphere to a chemical "signature" from fossil fuel burning.
12. The second half of the film deals with possible changes in energy resources. Summarize below three of the possible alternatives discussed in the film - (longer answer here).