Which of the following factors control ice flow - ice geometry, properties, terminal environment and mass balance - all are correct!
On my third attempt I got 3 out of the 4 which was a failure. The good thing about the tests in this MOOC is that you can see the correct answer and can also go back to the test.
I did, however, get a basic understanding that about how climate change has impacted on Greenland Over the last 2 decades as a result of global
The second half of the week was about ocean acidification I did understand a little bit more, possibly because it is a process with less dependencies than the impact on cryosphere, or maybe understood the correlations a little bit more.
According Ceri Lewis in her excellent video presentation oceans make-up 70% of the planet's surface and acidification is the greatest threat to biodiversity. Oceans absorb a third of atmospheric CO2. When CO2 dissolves into the sea water it reacts with the water to form carbonic acid. The carbonic acid dissociates into 2 irons bicarbonate and hydrogen, the hydrogen concentration determines the PH which is presently 8.1. If CO2 levels increase hydrogen and bicarbonate increase in seawater. The ocean has a natural buffering system the carbonate buffer. Carbonate ions soak up hydrogen ions keeping the PH system stable. Carbonate ions enter sea water through natural weathering and shells from dead marine life. Carbonate ions are the building blocks of carbonate skeletons and shells. The danger is when the amount of CO2 exceeds the amount of carbonate ions in the sea water, which will lead to a fall in PH. Ocean acidification can impact on calcification of organisms water as the under saturated in calcium carbonate leaves shells vulnerable to dissolution. Increased acidity can alter the physiology of mature organisms impacting on the development of carbonate skeletons and fertilisation. This is turn has an impact on the whole food chain.
I have just passed the mid-point of the MOOC and the first one I have stuck with on Futurelearn, I have done a couple on Coursera. The user interface is very simple, it is helpful that you can track your progress as well as easily review content from previous weeks, as well as test results. The learning and teaching style with a combination of video, articles, discussion and reflection has helped to consolidated my learning. Much of what I am learning is extremely new to me and as I said at the beginning my background is in the social sciences not sciences so getting a grasp of some of the technical aspects has been challenging but I think I am learning and yes it is interesting. My pace has probably been pedestrian because of previous limited knowledge and I have had to seek out simpler explanations for some things and yes Wikipedia is still one of my go to sites. I think there was too much content in the first couple weeks despite me being a novice I have experience of elearning delivery and I think there was an underestimation of how much time it would take to review all the content to complete the test at the end, although this appears to have eased a little. I must admit my contribution to the discussions has been scant but as you can see I have reflected every week and this has assisted in my review process. Another useful aspect is being be able to see the PDF transcript of the videos which has helped to fill in anything that I missed in my watching. I also haven't completely abandoned analogue and using a notebook to write notes.
