...Theory This thesis expands on the theoretical understandings of environmental archaeology and climate change driven landscapes. An understanding of environmental archaeology and climate change assists in the heritage management at KLGO and throughout the national park system. Incorporating biological, ecological, and geological sciences with applied anthropological investigations remains necessary in understanding the research conducted at KLGO. I use environmental archaeology and climate change theories to understand past environments and people’s interactions with their environment, examine impacts to archaeological sites, prepare preservation plans and develop future monitoring plans using comparative data, conduct archaeological inventories,...
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...Desert and Glacial Landscape There are several types of desert landforms; they include, but are not limited to mesas, plateaus, buttes, blowouts, and dunes. The desert landscape is shaped mainly by two forces: wind and water. Landforms in the desert, such as plateaus, buttes, and mesas are the product of weathering and erosion but are also a direct product of rock structure. Rocks of altering density and strengths will wear away at various rates. In time, this will create the astonishing structures that we see in the deserts. These rock structures are likely to have angular features because of the lack of rain in a desert setting. The lack of rain also means that there is little chemical weathering associated with rainfall. We typically do not associate rainfall with the desert, but when it does rain, flooding can easily happen and these flash floods will cut gullies and scarps into the landscape. Sand dunes are also a very common sight in a desert. These are created by winds that blow the sand around and eventually deposit them into different formations. Sand can travel many miles during the course of a year and can be devastating to anything in its path. Dunes can take on many shapes and characteristics. They include dome, crescentic, linear, star, parabolic, Seif, transverse, and reversing dunes. The shape and characteristic of the aforementioned dunes are dependent on the interaction with the wind. Silt and sand deposited by the wind is scientifically...
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...Global warming What is the greenhouse effect, and is it affecting our climate? The greenhouse effect is unquestionably real, and is essential for life on Earth. It is the result of heat absorption by certain gases in the atmosphere (called greenhouse gases because they trap heat) and re- radiation downward of a part of that heat. Water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas, followed by carbon dioxide and other trace gases. Without a natural greenhouse effect, the temperature of the Earth would be about zero degrees F (-18°C) instead of its present 57°F (14°C). However, the concern is not with the fact that we have a greenhouse effect, but it is with the question regarding whether human activities are leading to an enhancement of the greenhouse effect. Are greenhouse gases increasing? Human activity has been increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (mostly carbon dioxide from combustion of coal, oil, and gas; plus a few other trace gases). There is no scientific debate on this point. Pre-industrial levels of carbon dioxide (prior to...
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...My Reactions On: CLIMATE CHANGE ISSUES AND GREEN OPPORTUNITIES A. The Report Content, Organization And Presentation The topic of “Current issues, concerns, trends, challenges and opportunities of running an offshore business” specifically on the “Climate change issues and green opportunities” interests me as a topic for this reaction paper because for the past years now, the world has given much attention to this issue. Businessmen now are very concerned on how to transcend and adopt to green opportunities which is the trend right now since consumers are also very much conscious on the effect of greenhouse emissions and global warming to their health and to mother nature. The topic stimulates more my interest because I want to be aware on how companies advance on an climate-friendly business models, and operations which will result to eco-friendly products and services which are of course appropriate to the climate of the location of their businesses. B. The Relevance And Applicability Of This Report In My Life and In My Environment At Present And In The Future. This report is very relevant to me because it made me become more aware on the effects of climate change not only to myself, to the environment, but also to the business sector on what it can do to the future of the economy. As an individual, at present I might not be that concern on what the effects of climate change would be, but I cannot hide nor deny it that there is really an effect. In addition, the topic...
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...No one can say with any assurance what the dollar value of damages would be from the highly uncertain climate changes that might accompany a planet earth that is steadily warming. Paul Solman: Are headlines trumpeting the fact that carbon dioxide levels in the earth’s atmosphere have now passed 400 parts per million for the first time in something like three million years unduly alarmist? Or are they a timely warning? I asked noted environmental economist Martin Weitzman to address the question. An expert on the Soviet economy in the ’70s and ’80s, Weitzman first made news in 1984 with the publication of a book called The Share Economy, an argument for profit sharing instead of fixed wages. Fourteen years later came his paper Recombinant Growth, which revolutionized how some of us understood the enormous potential of technology. But for many years, Weitzman has also been working on environmental economics and most recently, in a series of widely cited academic papers, on the economics of global warming; the most famous, on the “Economics of Catastrophic Climate Change.” Weitzman’s central idea is not unlike the legendary bet proposed by the 16th century Catholic French philosopher Blaise Pascal. One way to interpret Pascal’s argument: even if you think the likelihood of God’s existence is vanishingly small, the cost if you’re wrong — eternal damnation — is infinitely high. An infinite cost times even a tiny probability is still … an infinite cost. So you make...
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...off the earth’s ground level ozone (Weller, 2016). Generally, these emission would have been released into outer space, but then again these gases, which remain in the atmosphere for possibility centuries, meanwhile trapping heat and causing the planet to get warmer as decades come to past (Hansen, 2016). Of the numerous heat-trapping gases, carbon dioxide places us at the jeopardy of irreparable modifications if it continues to gather persistently in the atmosphere provided that the global economy remains in need of fossil fuels for its energy needs (Hansen, 2016). Consequently, sea levels are expanding, glaciers are melting, cloud forests are desiccating, and nature is scrambling to keep pace of the environmental change (Hansen, 2016). Scientist have discover that mankind have caused the warming of the earth in the previous decades past due to the releasing of heat-trapping emission as we produce energy for today’s way of living. These heating agents are currently changing the normal cycle of climate change that all living creatures and plant life must be dependent on. The carbon dioxide we emit in the atmosphere currently will accurately regulate not only our climate future but also the future for generations to come. The primary objective is to control global warming by restricting the release of CFC’s gases into the atmosphere. We as the...
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...Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions, or in the distribution of weather around the average conditions (i.e., more or fewer extreme weather events). Climate change is caused by factors such as biotic processes, variations in solar radiation received by Earth, plate tectonics, and volcanic eruptions. Certain human activities have also been identified as significant causes of recent climate change, often referred to as "global warming". Scientists actively work to understand past and future climate by using observations and theoretical models. A climate record — extending deep into the Earth's past — has been assembled, and continues to be built up, based on geological evidence from borehole temperature profiles, cores removed from deep accumulations of ice, floral and faunal records, glacial and periglacial processes, stable-isotope and other analyses of sediment layers, and records of past sea levels. More recent data are provided by the instrumental record. General circulation models, based on the physical sciences, are often used in theoretical approaches to match past climate data, make future projections, and link causes and effects in climate change. Terminology The most general definition of climate change is a change in the statistical properties of the climate system when considered over long periods...
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...Climate Change: Global Warming In April 9th of 2010, Marisa Marcavillaca—a farmer and indigenous women’s organizer from Peru— went to The Capitol Hill to tell her powerful story. Her words were quoted by Al Gore in one of his speeches. She said through a translator: “We are very concerned, in my community, [and] in my country, about global climate change. Nature is disrupted. We are seeing the impacts on a daily basis. We are losing our lands, water is disappearing, it rains when it shouldn’t rain, and we have freezing temperatures, when we shouldn’t have freezing temperatures. Also, warmer temperatures in our farming area have spurred plant diseases, and the quality of agricultural seeds has degenerated cutting into local women’s ability to earn a living. Because our yields are down, it is difficult to feed our children.” (Jaime Baily 14). Climate change has become a very contested and debated matter. Some scientists say that the earth is warming; skeptics contend that it is cooling. Glaciologists say that the polar ice on earth is melting, and skeptics say that Antarctic ice is growing. Skeptics-that have also concluded that the earth is warming-point out that the earth has gone through many such warming periods (interglacials or periods of desertification) in between cooling periods and that these are natural cycles. But the long-running debate over whether or not global warming is anthropogenic is arriving to its end. Not only it is caused by man,...
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...TOPIC: CLIMATE CHANGE The topic of climate change is like a puzzle with many different pieces—oceans, the atmosphere, ecosystems, polar ice, natural and human influences. Scientists have been working on this puzzle for more than a century, and while there are still gaps in our knowledge, most experts feel we have the puzzle is complete enough to show that human activities are having an adverse effect on our planet. This talks looks at many of those puzzle pieces, the evidence behind them, and the conclusions we can draw from them. OUTLINE • What changes climate? • Is it real? • How do we know? • Why should we care? • How sure are scientists? • What next—what can we do? What changes climate? Changes in: – Sun’s output – Earth’s orbit – Drifting continents – Volcanic eruptions – Greenhouse gases Scientists have a good understanding of what has changed earth’s climate in the past: • Incoming solar radiation is the main climate driver. Its energy output increased about 0.1% from 1750 to 1950, increasing temperatures by 0.2°F (0.1°C) in the first part of the 20th century. But since 1979, when we began taking measurements from space, the data show no long-term change in total solar energy, even though Earth has been warming. • Repetitive cycles in Earth’s orbit that occur over tens of thousands of years can influence the angle and timing...
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...Property 380 Issues and Trends Report on the Affect of Climate Change and Peak Oil on the Auckland Property Market September 19th 2011 Contents Part One: Background on Main Issues 1.1 An explanation of Climate Change and Peak Oil (presenting both sides including the ongoing Climate Change debate and Peak Oil debate). 1.2 An identification of some key consequences the world faces if these threats are left unmitigated (including economic, ecological and social consequences). 1.3 An explanation of how the two purported challenges are intertwined (beyond the fact that burning fossil fuels emits greenhouse gases). 1.4 A presentation of current present evidence (or ‘purported evidence’) of the early stages of these consequences which are currently unfolding. Part Two: S.W.O.T. Analysis on the post-peak Auckland property market An analysis of the associated Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats from the perspective of a property investor making direct investments, using a retail property product type. 2.1 Strengths 2.2 Weaknesses 2.3 Opportunities 2.4 Threats Section 1.1: Climate Change and Peak Oil Climate Change Human activities such as driving cars, burning coal and deforestation produce greenhouse gases (mainly carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide). These gases gather in the atmosphere, wrap around the earth and consequently trap the...
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...was the climate in the Earth in a particular place on particular day. However, unfortunately based on the some clues still remain in the rock, ice, trees, corals, and definitely on the fossils. Based on these clues it is clearly indicated that the Earth climate has changed many time before. There was a time period when the whole planet was covered with ice. Now the scenario has been totally changed. If we flashback just last 650,000 years back, there was an increased level of environmental carbon-di-oxide (CO2) and temperature and simultaneously decreased the cyclical pattern. Scientists have been studies and analyze enormous experimental trials to find out the better way and to understand the climate change in this planet. Some of the selective ways are following various weather forecast departments’ for the purpose of receiving the weather information send back to the earth viz. weather stations (for the measurement of temperature, rainfall, wind speed, and humidity; weather balloons (just float in a very high altitude in the atmosphere with a transmitter); weather satellites (sent a satellite to the space for getting the information regarding rainfall, temperature, cloud cover, etc.; ice cores (if we cut the ice into small pieces with the help of glaciers that was existed very long time ago and to see the trapped air bubbles in the ice); sediment analysis (based on the layers in the rock); and finally the tree rings (based on precipitation of rain or snowfall past years)...
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...the next century the likely rise will be from 1C to 3.7C, not the 5C-plus scenario touted by alarmists. Similarly the IPCC report calls into question the alarmist claim that sea levels will rise 1m to 2m. Its estimates are in the range of 40cm to 63cm by the end of the century. Moreover, this moderate message is reinforced by the past 15-20 years of little or no temperature rise. Since 1980, the average of all the current climate models have overestimated the actual temperature rise by 71 to 159 per cent. This does not mean that there is not some global warming, but it makes the worst scenarios ever more implausible. Yet our climate conversation has been dominated by fear and end-of-the-world thinking. Less than a decade ago, Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth portrayed how a sea level rise of 6m would inundate Florida, along with Beijing and Bangladesh. Yes, it was terrifying. But it had no basis in reality. While panic is a great way to raise awareness and win votes, it does not produce smart policies. A sea-level rise of 40cm to 63cm poses a more manageable challenge. For purposes of comparison, sea levels have risen about 30cm in the past 150 years. Even with fewer resources and technologies at their disposal, our forefathers handled this challenge quite deftly. There was no catastrophe. We need to get realism back. Yes, global warming is happening. In the long run, it has an overall negative impact. Yet economic models generally find that moderate global warming is...
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...Climate change From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia For current and future climatological effects of human influences, see global warming. For the study of past climate change, see paleoclimatology. For temperatures on the longest time scales, see geologic temperature record. [pic] |Atmospheric sciences | |[pic] | |Aerology | |Atmospheric physics | |Atmospheric dynamics (category) | |Atmospheric chemistry (category) | |Meteorology | |Weather (category) · (portal) | |Tropical cyclone (category) | |Climatology | |Climate (category) | |Climate change (category) | |Global warming (category) · (portal) | |v · d · e | Climate change is a long-term change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average (e.g., more or fewer extreme weather events). Climate change may be limited to a specific region or may occur across the whole Earth. |Contents ...
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...* * * * ShareThis * Print friendly The study of earth’s history is not a subject of idle curiosity. We need to know more if we hope to solve the environmental crises that face humanity. That’s one reason that a biblical perspective on history is so important. It helps us make sense of the problems we face today and prepare for the future. Global Warming: A Scientific and Biblical Expose of Climate Change (DVD) These days it seems you can hardly turn on the TV, go online, or open your morning newspaper without being confronted with the idea of global warming. In his 2006 Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore presents global warming as an imminent threat to the planet and paints an alarming picture of a future in which mankind ultimately destroys life on earth. But global warming is far more intricate than one 48-minute film can convey, and most people are simply not getting some of the most important information. It’s clear that global warming is a complex and emotionally charged issue, one that cannot be ignored in today’s cultural and political climate. New claims and counter-claims appear in the press with numbing regularity, leaving many Christians uncertain what to believe. Rather than getting lost in the details, it is necessary first to uncover the basic facts and then to understand the assumptions that drive the interpretations of those facts. Although many people may think otherwise, all of us have...
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...General Chemistry I Bret Lynn For millions of years the changes in Earth’s climate have been driven by forces of nature. Although, for the last century and a half, Earth’s average temperature has been rising faster than any time in the past 10 thousand years. “We’re on a track to 700 parts-per-million of carbon dioxide on the planet, we haven’t seen that for 50 million years”(1). The signs are everywhere: droughts in the American southwest, rising seas in Louisiana, tropical diseases spreading north, and extremes of weather from Florida to France. There are people that still say “global warming need not concern us” and “if it is happening at all, it is a natural trend there is not much we can do about it.” However, there is now hard evidence, which shows that the warming is not only real, it’s accelerating. The warming is altering the climate’s most basic chacteristics like rainfall, days of sunshine, and nighttime temperatures. These changes are damaging the environment and agricultural production, threatening wild species into extinction, and putting at risk human lifestyle, health, and cities near the sea. It starts with the warming. In the Artic, reports of heat waves and droughts seem far away. Over the last 100 years, the world has seen a 1 degree Fahrenheit rise in its average temperature (2). However, in Alaska and Canada, winter temperatures have increased by as much as 5-7 degrees Fahrenheit in the past 50 years (2). Global warming is already having a noticeable...
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