The exam is usually one essay question that is required and a second essay question selected from a set of two questions. Short definitions for selected terms or phrases are drawn from the assigned readings and lectures.

How are "climate variability" and "climate change" different or the same?

What is the relative role of atmospheric gases in radiation and energy exchanges in the climate system? What factors influence temporal and spatial differences in the role of a given gas?

When does the reliable instrument record begin for climate variables? What are the limitations of the early instrument record? What types of data are used to extend the instrument record backward in time?

What was the nature of climatic conditions during the period known as the Little Ice Age? What sources of climatic information are available for the Little Ice Age?

Describe the general decadal characteristics of the smoothed time series of global temperature from 1880 to the present. What factors are commonly cited to account for the prominent increasing and decreasing trends in this time series?

Why is carbon dioxide the focus of so much attention regarding climate change?

What is the role of trace gases in the Earth’s greenhouse effect and within the context of climate change? Why are some trace gases a greater concern than other trace gases regarding climate change?

What evidence is there that human activity has had an influence on the current concentrations of atmospheric trace gases?

What types of evidence can be used to support the position that "the greenhouse is real"?

How does a change in the sun’s radius change the solar flux density?

"There is not a true surface radiation balance." Explain how this statement can be valid.

Compare and contrast the net radiation balance for the atmosphere with the net radiation balance for the earth’s surface. What are the latitudinal characteristics for each of these radiation balances?

What changes could be expected in the earth’s radiation flux density if its temperature increased by 4° K?

How can fluctuations in sunspot number generate climate change on Earth?

Explain the influence of earth orbital parameters on the climate system and the spatial distribution of solar radiation. What is their relationship to the Milankovich theory?

What is the "enhanced greenhouse effect"? What are the common contributors to this perceived response?

Describe the characteristics of the link between CFCs and ozone and why this coupling is a concern for climate change.

Describe the global pattern of stratospheric ozone production and destruction, and the three factors that control the distribution of stratospheric ozone.

Effective emissivity

Negative feedback

Solar irradiance

Time scales of solar luminosity change

Proxy data

Medieval warm epoch

Gordon Manley

Year without a summer

Blackbody radiation

Plank’s law

Energy transitions

Maunder minimum

Facular brightening

Solar flux density

Climate forcing

Running mean (average)

Mauna Loa record

Biospheric sources of carbon

Pre-industrial atmospheric CO₂

Enteric fermentation

Methyl bromide

Polar stratospheric clouds