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NERACOOS Ocean and Weather Climate Display
03.08.2013    

The NERACOOS ocean and weather climate display delivers information about the average weather and ocean conditions between 2001 and 2012. The display also includes information about recent and past years' ocean and weather conditions so that you can compare them to the average conditions from the past decade.

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The Psychology of Climate Change Communication
09.11.2011    

Intended for anyone who communicates about climate change, the guide’s purpose is to assist communicators in reaching two key audiences - the general public and decision makers from government and business - more effectively.

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North Atlantic Oscillation and Climate Variability
03.25.2008    

Dr. Martin Visbeck's online slide show about the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is intended for older high school or undergraduate audiences. It gives background on the NAO, its impacts (temperature, precipitation, storminess, economics), its effects on the North Atlantic Ocean, the stratosphere, and global warming.

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Too Many Blankets
02.24.2008    
 
Muir Glacier

This learning activity is part of an overall series entitled "The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change". This series of three activities demonstrates some effects of rising levels of greenhouse gases on climate.

The first activity, "How Does the Make-up of the Atmosphere Affect Temperature?", asks students to construct a model to address the matter of increasing levels of greenhouse gases and their relationship to increasing atmospheric temperatures. The second activity, "How Do Higher Temperatures Affect the Water Cycle?", will demonstrate how an increase in temperature will speed up the water cycle, resulting in higher rainfall amounts followed by increased evaporation and subsequent drought. The final activity, "What Will Happen if Climate Variability and Change Cause Glacier and Polar Ice Cap Melting?", will show how the melting of ice can lead to a rise in sea level and subsequent flooding of coastal areas.

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Abrupt Events of the Past 70 Million Years - Evidence from Scientific Ocean Drilling
11.24.2007    
 
DEA logo

The history of the Earth has been characterized by global change of a very gradual nature. However, the Earth's history has also included events of abrupt change. Often these changes coincide with catastrophic events (meteorite impact 65 million years ago). At other times, the global climate system gradually moves closer to a breaking point, at which time abrupt change occurs. Scientific ocean drilling has provided stunning examples of these abrupt events through its recovery of deep sea sediment cores.

This website has activities and resources, including a picture of a real ocean core showing abrupt changes, to help students analyze the evidence for abrupt changes in Earth's climate system using ocean cores.

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Climate Cycles: Clues from Deep Sea Cores
11.24.2007    

What are climate cycles? The Earth's climate is cyclical - that means that there is a regular pattern of change over time. Scientific ocean drilling has been the tool in reconstructing virtually every climate record from 500,000 years ago to nearly 70 million years ago. So, deep sea cores obviously hold a lot of clues in discovering what ancient climate was like.

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Microfossils: the Ocean's Storytellers
11.24.2007    

This website has a poster that shows several different images of microfossils, taken through microscopes, as well as activities for students simulate the identification and use of these microfossils to examine past climate change and Earth history. Activities include: Small Creatures-Big Science, Secrets of the Sediments, Nannofossils Reveal Seafloor Spreading Truth.

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Global Climate Change: Research Explorer
11.16.2007    

Though climate change isn't new, the study of how human activity affects the earth's climate is. The exploration of climate change encompasses many fields, including physics, chemistry, biology, geology, meteorology, oceanography, and even sociology. At this Web site, you can explore scientific data relating to the atmosphere, the oceans, the areas covered by ice and snow, and the living organisms in all these domains. You'll also get a sense of how scientists study natural phenomena-how researchers gather evidence, test theories, and come to conclusions.

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The Habitable Planet: A Systems Approach to Environmental Science
11.13.2007    
 
Tube worms

The Habitable Planet: A Systems Approach to Environmental Science is a course for high school teachers and undergraduate students in environmental science. The content course will help teachers of biology, chemistry, and Earth science provide more content in their classes. Course components include 13 half-hour video programs, a coordinated Web site which includes the streamed video programs, the course text online, five interactive simulations, background on the scientists who created the content and those whose research is documented, a professional development guide (also available in print form), and additional resources. Graduate credit is available for the course through Colorado State University.

This course begins with an overview of the Earth's systems - geophysical, atmospheric, oceanic, and ecosystems - as they exist independently of human influence. Following this introduction, the course explores the effect that human activities have on the different natural systems. Topics include human population growth and resource use, increasing competition for fresh water, and climate change. Each of the 13 programs features two case studies following top scientists in the field.

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Rediscovering Biology: Emerging Infectious Diseases
11.13.2007    

This online textbook chapter from Rediscovering Biology supports and extends the content of Unit 5: Emerging Infectious Diseases video, which can be accessed online at the URL listed. This is course designed initially for high school biology teachers. The chapter content covers the factors affecting the emergence of disease including a subchapter topics on Insect Vectors and Climate and Weather, with discussions on global climate change, Cholera and Hantavirus outbreaks.

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Exploring Regional Differences in Climate Change
11.13.2007    
 
Changes in the extent of sea ice

Most people understand that significant climate changes are predicted in the next century, but they may not be aware that these changes will likely vary regionally. Using climatological data from the University of New Hampshire's EOS-Webster, students will obtain annual predictions for minimum temperature, maximum temperature, precipitation, and solar radiation for Minnesota and California to explore this regional variability. They will learn how to access climate model predictions from EOS-Webster, a digital library of free Earth science data. They will then be walked through the process step-by-step of producing graphs of the data in a spreadsheet application to compare climate predictions among U.S. states through the year 2100. Students are asked to analyze the graphs to interpret regional trends in climate change. Data used: Climate Model Predictions. Tools used: EOS-Webster, and access to the a spreadsheet application like Microsoft Excel.

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Journey to Planet Earth: Hot Zones
11.12.2007    

The episode Hot Zones shows just how closely human health is dependent on that of the environment. With the outbreak of thirty previously unknown diseases in the last two decades, the film examines the human consequences of altering global and local ecosystems. In this program, the narrators visit Kenya, Peru, Bangladesh and the United States where changing climates, uncontrolled development and loss of natural habitat have led to an increase in infectious disease.

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METEd: Science of Global Climate Change and Human Influences
11.11.2007    

This Webcast is an expert lecture by Dr. Kevin Trenberth of NCAR's Climate and Global Dynamics division published on June 14, 2004. The presentation includes evidence that the atmosphere is changing, discussions on global energy flows and human factors contributing to change, and concludes with predictions for the future.

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Potential Effects of Amazon Deforestation on Tropical Climate
11.03.2007    

This report describes the results of a study in which climate modeling was used to examine the effects of deforestation in the Amazon basin. The study concluded that changes in land surface properties (loss of forest cover) cause changes in the mean surface wind stress in the tropical Pacific, which in turn results in increased variability of El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events.

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Under the Weather: Climate, Ecosystems, and Infectious Disease
10.31.2007    

This scientific report addresses questions on climate change and public health. Can we use climate and weather forecasts to predict infectious disease outbreaks? Can the field of public health advance from "surveillance and response" to "prediction and prevention?" Can we predict how global warming will affect the emergence and transmission of infectious disease agents around the world? Under the Weather evaluates our current understanding of the linkages among climate, ecosystems, and infectious disease; it then goes a step further and outlines the research needed to improve our understanding of these linkages.

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Carbon Stabilization Wedge Game
10.23.2007    
 
Global carbon dioxide

The Carbon Stabilization Wedge game, a unique, hands-on learning tool, helps students learn the impacts of different strategies for reducing greenhouse gases. To emphasize the need for early action, this activity strives to drive home the scale of the carbon mitigation challenge and the tradeoffs involved in planning climate policy. It uses the the concept of 'stabilization wedges' - 25 billion ton "wedges" that need to be cut out of predicted future carbon emissions in the next 50 years to avoid a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide over pre-industrial levels.

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Communicating and Learning About Global Climate Change (Teacher Guide)
10.23.2007    

This teacher guide created by AAAS is designed to give you a brief overview of Project 2061's recommendations for the relevant ideas and skills that all students should learn to understand the science of climate change, the process of scientific inquiry, and the trade-offs and constraints implicit in making choices about technology.

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Guide to Climate Change: Greenhouse Effect
10.17.2007    

This resource includes animations that illustrate how the greenhouse effect works.

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Getting to the Core of Climate Change
06.28.2007    

How can we use ice core data from the polar regions to investigate changes in Earth's climate past, present, and future? Students investigate climate changes going back thousands of years by graphing and analyzing ice core data from Greenland and Antarctica.

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Climate Change and Ecosystems
06.28.2007    

The Curriculum Guide activities engage students in an exploration of the impacts of global climate change on ecosystems and natural resources, on community, and on individuals and society.

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