Download Lesson 2 Planning

Lesson Focus
Answering the question: What is climate change and how do we know that it is
happening? Focuses on historical and current climate data (surface air temperature,
frequency of extreme weather events, CO2 concentration, CH4 concentration, N2O
concentration) from sources such as ice cores and the Mauna Loa Conservatory. Includes
exploration of climate trends (how climate is more than local temperature trends),
correlation vs. causation tensions, and climate change myths (ie- misconceptions about
solar cycles or natural temperature trends).
Key Concepts
Understand the clear evidence that demonstrates the existence of climate change.
Understand climate trends from surface temperature data, ice core data, and other
available data. (Use genuine historical data perhaps with internet links to current data).
Understand that there is evidence to show that CO2 and other GHG concentrations rising.
Appreciate that we do not understand the pattern in methane concentration. Appreciate
the important tension between correlation and causation.
Using the DLOs:
New visualization (in development) focusing on ice core data and atmospheric trends is
in development, Ice-Core Analysis, Visualizing Global Climate Change
Covering the general principles: Principle 2: Climate is regulated by complex
interactions among components of the Earth system. Principle 4. Climate varies over
space and time through both natural and man-made processes. Principle 5: Our
understanding of the climate system is improved through observations, theoretical
studies, and modeling. Principle 6: Human activities are impacting the climate system.
Possible Concept Questions:
How do we know that the climate is changing?
How do we compare today’s climate with historical climates?
How do we determine climate trends?
How do we know what we know about climate trends throughout history and climate
change?
What is climate change and how does climate correlate with greenhouse gas
concentrations over time?
Lesson Outline
Topic 1: Evidence for Historical Climate and Greenhouse Gas Concentration
Including info about how ice cores are collected, stored, and analyzed
Including info about what ice cores tell us and how we know they are accurate
Including info about how we determine historical temperatures and gas
concentrations from ice cores
Worked Example Questions: How do we know what the concentration of gases was 750
thousand years ago? – for temperature, etc.
Topic 2: Historical and Current Temperature Trends (rates of change)
Including info about key historical events and their effects on temperature
Have student directly working with new ice core data applet to look at historical
temperature trends (on log and linear scale)
Including info about average rates of change in the past (little ice age occurring
over thousands of years)
Mentioning feedback processes from events such as volcanoes in the past
Topic 3: Historical and Current Trends of Atmospheric Gases
Including historical events leading to changes in atmospheric composition
Correlation versus causation, interrogation of data, oscillations of methane and
Co2
Topic 4: Relationships Between Gas and Temperature Trends
Including discussion of atmospheric gas trends as compared to historical
temperature trends
Focusing on Relationship between Carbon Dioxide and Temperature Trends
Topic 5: Rates of Change in the Past 250 Years (or “Changes Since the Industrial
Revolution)
Answering the question- how are the changes we hear about today any different
from past changes?
Including discussion of today’s temperature trends and gas concentrations as
compared to the past.
Discussing current concentrations of gases and predicted future changes based on
models
Possible Question Types
 Hothouse Planet Questions
 Mention historical events (key volcanic eruptions, ice ages, etc) and have student
find them, describe temperature/gas changes
 Key Questions Related to Rates of Change
 Questions from RSC
(Notes about key historical events
 Last Ice Age
 Last Glacial Maximum- the last prolonged period of Ice age cold climate before
the present day (21 kya)
 Little Ice Age (AD- 1550-AD 1850)- a period marked by more frequent cold
episodes in Europe , North America, and Asia, during which mountain glacier,
especially in the Alps, Norway, Iceland, and Alaska, expanded substantially.
 Younger Dryas (12.9-11.6 kya)- A sudden, abrupt cold episode, which
interrupted the sustained warming trend between the Last Glacial Maximum and
the Holocene.
 74 kya- Toba in Sumatra erupted, global cooling
 Emergence of agriculture
 Mesopotamia flourishes
 Holocene Optimum
 Medieval Warm
 Vikings in Greenland
 Little ice age in Europe (15-18 centuries)
 1750- American Revolution
 1602- coldest summer in last 600 years, due to eruption of a volcano in southern
peru
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1815- major volcanic eruption (Tambora in Indonesia)- followed by cooling?
1850- Industrial Revolution
Cretaceous- an era in which mean global temperature may have bee 1-‘C warmer
than they are today, and deep-water temperature may have been 8’C warmer. The
last period of the Mesozoic era, the cretaceous, was marked by the rapid rise and
spread of deciduous trees, by shallow seas submerging most of the eath’s present
land surface, and by dinosaurs- swhich became extinct afte this period.
Pleistocene (10kya – 1.6 Mya)- the geological period, which together with the
Holocene makes up the Quaternary. This epoch was characterised by numerous
(at least 17) worldwide changes of climate, cycling between glacial (cool_ and
interglacial (cool) and interglacial (warmer) periods, with periodicities of 100, 41
and 23 kyr.
Holecene- the relatively warm epoch , which started around 10,000 years ago and
runs up to present time. It is marked by several short lived paricualrly warm
periods, the most significant of which, from 6.2 to 5.3 kya, is called th Holocene
optimum.
Glacial epochs- peiod during the history of the Earth when there were larger ice
sheets (continental size) and mountain glaciers than today. The most reent glacial
epoch, the Pleistocene has encompassed much o the last 1.6 mya. In overall
occurrence, all the glacial epochs that have ever occurred, occupy only 5-10% of
all geologic time. During major lacial epochs, which seem to recur at interval of
200 to 250 Mya, great ice sheets form in the high latitude and stprad out to cover
as mucha s 4-% of the earht’s land surface.
8.2ka event Following the last post-glacial warming, a rapid climate oscillation
with a cooling latig aout 400 years occuured about 8.2 kc. This event is also
referred to as the 8.2kya event.
1961-1990- global dimming, the perceive widespread reudctio of solar radiation
received at the surcace fo the earth from about the year 1961 to 1990.