Give an example not discussed in this chapter of a positive feedback and a negative feedback in the climate system.
Do Milankovitch cycles fully explain the warming and cooling of the global climate during the Pleistocene glacial cycles?
How would the calcium cycle be affected by a global increase in chemical weathering?
Draw a simple diagram of the geochemical cycle for the element sodium, which is found in marine evaporites (halite) and clay minerals as well as dissolved in seawater.
What would the carbon cycle have looked like after life had originated, but before photosynthesis had evolved?
If human activities keep pumping CO2 into the atmosphere at a steadily increasing rate and Earth’s climate warms significantly in the next 100 years, how might the global carbon cycle be affected?
Why are scientists reasonably sure that most of the twentieth-century warming was due to changes in the climate system caused by human activities?