Global Climate Change Activity

Part 1:

Question:

Can you explain to your classmate why temperatures from only a single year are not enough to reach a conclusion about changing climate? Use Figure 1.1 to construct your argument, noting when El Niño events occur, but also which years have the highest temperatures. How has the average annual temperature shifted through time? How do the temperatures in the El Niño years compare to the 1950–1970 average? To the 1985–2005 average?

Answer:

Changes in weather do affect climate over long periods of time. On the first graph provided, which maps average temperatures in the U.S. from 1950-1970 along with El Nino years, El Nino events are collectively lower than the El Nino events in the second graph, which has the same information dated from 1985-2005. And in the second graph, the average temperature is noticeably higher and El Nino events occur much more often. This proves that the more frequent the El Nino events happen, and the more extreme they are, the more they can noticeably impact a climate. So that classmate is wrong.

Part 2:

Year	CO2 PPM
1850	285
1900	300
1950	315
2000	350
2100	x>350

1. CO2 levels are increasing at an accelerating rate from decade to decade.

2. a) I would exaggerate the changes by changing the vertical scale.

   b) I would obscure the changes by changing the horizontal scale.

3. Industrial Revolution

4. The graph shows that the rate of CO2 levels is increasing at accelerating speed. It implies that if we don't reduce CO2 emissions, the CO2 levels are likely to be rise exponentially.

Part 3:

Stop	# of Students	Miles to and from school	Total miles driven by all students living near that stop
A	2	0.3	0.6
B	2	1.1	2.2
C	2	2.2	4.4
D	3	2.9	8.7
E	2	3.6	7.4
F	2	2.2	4.4
G	2	2.4	4.8
H	2	3.8	7.6
I	3	2.6	5.2
J	3	1.5	4.5
K	2	0.8	1.6
Average:			5.4

2.

1. 5.4 miles
2. 135 miles
3. 675 miles

3. 30.7 gal

4. 595.2 lb

5. 0.2976 tons

6. 9.2 miles

7. 0.368 miles/student

8. 65.7 mpg/week

9. 1274.9 lb

10. 0.637 tons

11. 2.339 tons

Part 4:

1. The X axis is the years from 0 to 2000 and the Y axis the differences from 1961-1990 average temperature in celsius.
2. The zero on the Y axis is the average temperature from 1961-1990.
3. It is a good baseline because the period of time from 1961-1990 is a time of extreme temperature change so the fluctuation is very evident on the chart
4. Do on the packet
5. The lowest temperature is around year 1600 and the highest temperature is in 2000
6. The coldest temperature in the blue is much colder than the coldest in the red but the warmest blue temperature is fairly similar to the highest red temperature.
7. It slowly Increases as the years continue
8. The impact of a climate just one degree celsius warmer by 2100 will have serious impacts on agriculture and coastal regions around the world. It will raise sea levels, hasten extinctions, and impact food production.

Reflection:

From this exploration, I gathered that the evidence of climate change is often understated. The Earth’s climate has gone from extremely hot to freezing cold a number of times, but the change in climate in the past 200 years alone is incomparably higher than that of the past several thousand years. And yes the Earth temperature is/will only rise by a few degrees. However, just a few degrees is the difference between comfortable conditions and widespread drought. The evidence for climate change must be carefully reviewed before conclusions are drawn.