Assignment # 1

--> DUE in class on Wednesday, October 6 at 10:30 am
The first two questions are credit/no credit.

1. How confident are you that the warming the Earth has experienced over the last century is caused by humans? Use a number between 0 and 5 to convey your answer with 0 = no confidence and 5 = without a doubt.

2. What do you think is the most compelling evidence of anthropogenic change that is unusual compared to the past?
3.(a) By how much have atmospheric CO2 concentrations increased globally since the year 1800?
(b) How do we know this?
(c) What are thought to be the primary causes of this increase?

4. Write a paragraph of approximately 50 words describing the Earth's greenhouse effect, but in terms your friends would understand. Use diagrams as necessary.

5.  Using the web site http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/summary/climsmwa.html,
 find three stations, one in each of three climatic zones: coastal Washington, Camano Island, and eastern Washington. From the tables of climate data, write down the monthly mean precipiation. How does the annual range (maximum minus minimum month of precipitation) vary among the stations? In what month is the precipitation the highest? Using your knowledge about climate, suggest a hypothesis to explain why the data differ. (Your hypothesis need not be correct, but it should be well reasoned.)

Use Everett Jr College, Mount Vernon, or Seattle for a climate zone like that of Camano Island.

6. Draw feedback loops for the following processes
 and tell whether the loop is positive or negative.

(a) You eat more when you are hungry and less when you are full.
(b) White ice covering the ocean surface recedes when the temperature increases and advances when the temperature decreases.

7. Explain (as if to a friend) what daisyworld has to do with climate (use approximately 50 words).

8. Planet BLIC is inhabited by creatures who have a strange attachment to black licorice icecream and they attempt to coat their planet in it. The hotter the planet's surface, the less  effort they can muster, so black icecream coverage recedes when the temperature increases and advances when the temperature decreases. The natural surface is porous light brown sand, and when icecream melts, it disappears into the sand without a trace.

Draw a diagram like the one in Fig 2-10a from the text for planet BLIC but with the y-axis labeled "black licorice icecream coverage". Use your imagination and explain the shape of the curves or lines that you draw. Label the curves or lines "black icecream dependence on temperature" and "temperature dependence on black icecream". Be sure to have at least one intersection. Can the creatures succeed at covering the entire planet? Is the intersecting point stable?
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Contact the instructor at: atms211@atmos.washington.edu
Last Updated: 9/27/2004