Reference no: EM133286917

Assignment:

Describe one main driver of natural climate change; specifically, what natural event or process is a cause of dramatic climate change occurring any time before the ice ages? Choose an event occurring more than 1 million years before present; Additionally, I request you choose something other than the asteroid impact leading to the demise of dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

Be sure to:

1. Name the specific event

2. Indicate the time of the event (in years before present)

3. Indicate the name of the climate diver that initially caused a temperature change (and which variable represents this driver from equation 4.5 in the Dessler reading, i.e. the variables S, alpha, or "(n=1)" and the physical process or attribute each variable represents.

4. Very briefly describe how the event can lead to dramatic changes in Earth's surface temperature (again, choose any real driver or event other than asteroid impacts).

5. Explain why scientists are confident that the present warming of the last 100 years is not from this same mechanism you just described. (Your answer should also not point to the absence of this mechanism or process that is the opposite of the driver you just described).