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Instructions: Read the articles linked below and answer the questions by typing your answers into the boxes beneath the question. Send your answers by clicking the "Submit Assignment" button below.

Part 1 Climate Change in the Upper Midwest

Use "Evidence of Climate Change over the Last 10,000 Years from the Sediments of Lakes in the Upper Mississippi Basin." (USGS) to answer the questions below.

1. Examine the air mass and vegetation maps in the reading. Which air mass coincides with

a. The Prairie      

b. Deciduous Forest  

c. Confer Forest

2. What physical feature likely prevents the westward penetration of Gulf air?

3. What chemical property of buried sediments can be used to tell if the climate was dry? Why does this particular build up caused by?

4.  Using a timeline diagram the change in vegetation from 10,000 years to the present at Elk Lake.

5. Which air mass dominated the prairie period? Why would it create dry conditions even though it originated over the ocean?  

Part 2 Climate Change in the Arctic

Use Climate Change and Vegetation Tundra (USGS) to answer the questions below:

 1. Briefly describe the changes in vegetation species from 14.5 Ma to the present as a result of global cooling and warming.

2. How much colder was the interior of Alaska during a full glacial interval?

3. Speculate on the changes in Alaskan vegetation that we might expect if our global climate is warmer than it is today.