Exam 23: Global Change in the Earth System

During most of the Mesozoic,Earth was ____________.

Which of the following types of global change is reversible?

Some plankton make shells of calcite/aragonite,that is,CaCO₃.They do this metabolically by combining calcium (Ca²⁺)ions and bicarbonate (HCO₃-)ions that are both dissolved in water around them.When such plankton dies,their shells sink downward to become sediment of the ocean floor.Under some conditions in the ocean or sediment,the CaCO₃ shells may dissolve,locally enriching the pore waters or deep-ocean waters in HCO₃-.Portions of this total process could be considered belonging to each of the following cycles,EXCEPT for the ____________.

Ice cores from continental glaciers provide geologists opportunities to study past atmospheric conditions such as air temperature and greenhouse gas content.The reliable record available from coring ice in the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets gives information back to approximately ____________.

Tectonic uplift and resultant chemical weathering ____________ CO₂ to/from the atmosphere.

Stratigraphic studies have found evidence of numerous cycles of sea level rise and fall after the Precambrian.These cycles often have a sandstone at the base,grade up into coal,and are called ____________.

The hydrologic cycle includes which of these?

Albedo is the tendency of a surface to reflect solar energy instead of absorb it.Over the last 20 years the amount of the Arctic Ocean that has ice on it has decreased each summer,thereby exposing more and more of the Arctic Ocean to the atmosphere each summer.Would this cause the total absorbtion of heat in the Arctic to increase or decrease?

Based on the last approximately 130 years of solar energy reaching the top of Earth's atmosphere in the figure below,do you think the solar energy reaching Earth's atmosphere should rise or fall in the next 10 years?

A biogeochemical cycle means the ____________.