Global Warming 2007 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Thickening of the earth's atmosphere

Former Vice President Gore indicates that uncontrolled release of carbon dioxide is thickening the earth's atmosphere. This increases the amount of heat retained by the earth, since a thicker atmosphere retains more of the energy the earth receives from solar radiation.

Answer: No

Temperature measurements indicate that a weak El Nino pattern (which is the warming of the surface waters in the central Pacific Ocean) may have contributed to the relatively quiet Atlantic hurricane season of 2006. However, the long-term temperature increases around the world continued in 2006, which proved to be the warmest year on record for the US.

Answer: General Motors EV1

The General Motors EV1 was offered for lease primarily in the area of Los Angeles, California, in the late 1990s. The Japanese car manufacturer, Toyota, developed the hybrid design called the Prius partially in response to the introduction of the EV1, fearing that US automobile manufacturers would fully commit to electric cars.

The Prius was introduced a few years after the EV1 and became wildly popular. Of course, the technology for hydrogen fuel-cells is still in its infancy, and is not yet ready for the mass market. And the Toyota Corolla is not an alterative-fuel vehicle.

Answer: Mt Kilimanjaro

Mt Kilimanjaro is located in Tanzania, and the marked decrease in the size of its ice cap in recent years is a matter of record. Mt Everest, Mt Erebus, and Mt McKinley are located in much higher latitudes, so we may assume that these mountains' ice caps are safe for the time being.

Answer: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

This ruling reversed one made by a lower court regarding an energy firm (Duke Energy) that upgraded coal-fired power plants in the late 1980s and 1990s. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that these upgrades violated the Clean Air Act, and is seen by many environmentalists as a blow to the efforts of the Bush Administration to prolong the use of these antiquated coal-fired power plants.

Answer: The polar bear attacked a herd of walruses

Polar bears generally hunt for seals by breaking through the surface of the Arctic ice sheets. However, global warming is thinning and melting these ice sheets more quickly in the spring, so some polar bears swim some distance into ocean waters in search of food. In this case, the swim into the ocean was fruitless, and the desperation led the bear to attack a herd of walruses.

Answer: The Antarctic ice cap

The melting of the Arctic ice cap would not cause the world's sea levels to rise, because the ice sheet lies in the Arctic Ocean. On the other hand, the Antarctic ice cap is located on land, so if it were to melt, the water content would be added to the water contained in the world's oceans.

The Antarctic ice cap holds the vast majority of the water content that is locked in ice, so the melting of this ice cap would significantly add to the world's sea levels. Mountain ice caps, of course, do not hold anywhere near the water content that the polar ice caps do.

Answer: 10000 years ago

The Gulf Stream, to the best of our knowledge, was last disrupted about 10000 years ago at the end of the most recent ice age. Melting waters from the glaciers that covered North America deposited a large amount of cold freshwater into the North Atlantic Ocean, sending the European back into an ice age for a brief period of time until the Gulf Stream was able to recover.

Answer: Ice core samples

Ice core samples contain minute bubbles of air that contain information about the atmosphere at the time the ice was formed. It is measurements from these air bubbles that indicate that the levels of carbon dioxide that are currently in the atmosphere are unprecedented in the last 600,000 years.

Answer: New York

The state of New York is flanked by Lake Erie to the west and Lake Ontario to the north, so that much of the state is subject to localized lake-effect snows during the winter months. However, lake-effect snows are usually more prevalent earlier in the winter, when the lake surfaces are not yet frozen. With the ongoing climate change, this pattern was changed drastically this past winter.

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