The Science of Global Warming

CONTENTS OF CURRICULUM UNIT 06.05.01

  1. Unit Guide
  1. Introduction
  2. Background on the Atmosphere - Week 1
  3. Background on Global Warming - Week 2
  4. Exploring the Possible Local Environmental Effects
  5. Affect of Global Warming on Soil - Week 3
  6. Affect of Global Warming on Plants and Trees - Week 4
  7. Affect of Land Cover on Global Warming - Week 5
  8. Affect of Global Warming on Aquatics - Week 6
  9. Sea Level Rise from Global Warming - Week 7
  10. Affects of Global Warming on Animals - Week 8
  11. What We Can Do To Reduce Our Share of Global Warming - Week 9
  12. Example of Learning Cycle Lesson : Canned Cloud (cloud formation)
  13. Impact of Sea Level Rise on Wilmington, DE
  14. Matrix of Inconvenient Truth Selections That Relate to Weekly Topics
  15. Resources

Global Warming: Is Our Local Environment Ready for the Change?

Justin T. Benz

Published September 2006

Tools for this Unit:

Resources

Teacher Content Resources

http://unfccc.int/essential_background/feeling_the_heat/items/2918.php

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Site

http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/index.htm

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis

http://www.pewclimate.org/global-warming-in-depth/

Global Warming In depth great resource to gathers information to teach students a more close examination of the global warming.

Student Resource Binder Articles

Abu-Asab, M.S., Peterson, P.M., Shetler, S.G. & Orli, S.S. (2001).

Earlier plant flowering in spring as a response to global

warming in the Washington, DC, area. Biodiversity and

Conservation, 10, 597-612.

Butler, C.J. (2003). The disproportionate effect of global warming on the arrival dates of short-distance migratory birds in North

America. Ibis, (145), 484-495.

Dale, V.H. (1997, August). The relationship between land-use

change and climate change. Ecological Applications, 7(3),

753-769.

Dunn, P.O. & Winkler, D.W. (1999, December 22). Climate change has affected the

breeding date of tree swallows throughout North America.

Biological Sciences, 266(1437), 2487-2490.

Gehrels, W.R., Kirby, J.R., Prokoph, A., Newnham, R.M.,

Achterbert, E.P., Evans, H., Black, S., & Scott, D.B. (2005).

Onset of recent rapid sea-level rise in the western Atlantic

Ocean. Quaternary Science Reviews, 24, 2083-2100.

Jacoby, G.C. & D'Arrigo, R.D. (1997, August). Tree rings,

carbon dioxide, and climatic change. PNAS, 94, 8350-8353.

Jensen, M.N. (2004, August). Climate warming shakes up species. BioScience, 54(8),

722-729.

Lake, P.S., Palmer, M.A., Biro, P., Cole, J., Covich, A.P., Dahm, C., Gibert, J.,

Goedkoop, W., Martens, K., & Verhoeven, J. (2000, December). Global change

and the biodiversity of freshwater ecosystems: Impacts on linkages between

above-sediment and sediment biota. BioScience, 50(12), 1099-1107.

Li, M.H., Krauchi, N., & Gao, S.P. (2006). Global warming: Can existing reserves really

preserve current levels of biological diversity? Journal of Integrative Plant

Biology, 48(3), 255-259.

McCarty, J.P. (2001, April). Ecological consequences of recent climate change.

Conservation Biology, 15(2), 320-331.

Pounds, J.A., Bustamante, M.R., Coloma, L.A., Consuegra, J.A., Fogden, M.P.L., Foster,

P.N., LaMarca, E., Masters, K.L., Merino-Viteri, A., Puschendorf, R., Ron, S.R.,

Sanchez-Azofeifa, G.A., Still, C.J., & Young, B.E. (2006, January 12).

Widespread amphibian extinctions from epidemic disease driven by global

warming. Nature, 439, 161-167.

Rustad, L.E., Huntington, T.G., & Boone, R.D. (2000). Controls

on soil respiration: Implications for climate change.

Biogeochemistry, 48, 1-6.

Saxe, H., Cannell, M.G.R., Johnsen, O., Ryan, M.G., & Vourlitis,

G. (2001, March). Tree and forest functioning in response to

global warming. New Phytologist, 149(3), 369-399.

Schlesinger, W.H., & Andrews, J.A. (2000). Soil respiration and

the global carbon cycle. Biogeochemistry, 48, 7-20.

Schwartz, M.D., Ahas, R., & Aasa, A. (2006). Onset of spring starting earlier across the

Northern Hemisphere. Global Change Biology, 12, 343-351.

Stachowicz, J.J., Terwin, J.R., Whitlatch, R.B., & Osman, R.W.

(2002, November 26). Linking climate change and

biological invasions: Ocean warming facilitates

nonindigenous species invasions. PNAS, 99(24), 15497-

15000.

Vinnikov, K.Y., & Grody, N.C. (2003, October 10). Global

warming trend of mean tropospheric temperature observed by

satellites. Science, 302, 269-272.

Vorosmarty, C.J, Green, P., Salisbury, J., & Lammers, R.B. (2000,

July 14). Global water resources: Vulnerability from climate

change and population growth. Science, 289(5477), 284-288.

Vorosmarty, C.J. & Sahagian, D. (2000, September).

Anthropogenic disturbance of the terrestrial water cycle.

BioScience, 50(9), 753-765.

Zhang,K, Douglas,B.C., & Leatherman, S.P. (2004). Global

warming and coastal erosion. Climatic Change, 64, 41-58.

Teaching Resources

Background on the Atmosphere - Week 1

[1] http://www.earth.uni.edu/EECP/mid/mod5_ma.html

Constructing three dimensional models of greenhouse gases to illustrate their heat trapping abilities

[2] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3115409.stm

BBC Article — Ozone benefits from treaty

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_circulation

Wikipedia article on atmospheric circulation

[4] http://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/EDDOCS/scierbe.html

Lab to explore albedo using colored paper.

Background on Global Warming - Week 2

[5] http://www.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/

Trends in Atmospheric CO2 that students can observe

[6] http://www.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/co2_data_mlo.php

Observe graph of monthly mean atmospheric carbon dioxide at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii

[7] http://www.cmdl.noaa.gov/projects/src/web/trends/co2_mm_mlo.dat

Actual data monthly mean atmospheric carbon dioxide at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii

[8] http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A.txt

Global mean temperature data from 1880-2005

[9] http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/

Plot of global mean temperature data

[10] https://www.fueleconomy.gov/mpg/MPG.do?action=browseList

Fuel economy measurements for cars

Affect of Global Warming on Soils - Week 3

[11] http://websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov/app/

Portal to all of the 2300 soil surveys nationwide where you can find your county survey

[12] http://soils.usda.gov/survey/how_to/

How to use a soil survey if you need some pointers

[13] http://www.globe.gov/tctg/sectionpdf.jsp?sectionId=91&rg=n&lang=en

GLOBE soil characterization protocol

[14] http://viz.globe.gov/viz-bin/home.cgi?l=en&b=g&rg=n

GLOBE website visualization home page to make graphs of environmental data

Use to make a soil moisture map of the world for this section of unit

Affect of Global Warming on Plants and Trees - Week 4

[15] http://nationalmap.gov/gio/viewonline.html

Links to the different websites you will be able to have your students view aerial photographs of your local area.

[16] http://www.globe.gov/tctg/sectionpdf.jsp?sectionId=210&rg=n&lang=en

GLOBE biometry protocol to determine the vegetation types in an area

Affect of Land Cover on Global Warming - Week 5

[17] http://www.nasm.si.edu/ceps/rpif/landsat/STATE_A-G.html#DE

Free! Landsat images from each state

[18] http://www.globe.gov/tctg/sectionpdf.jsp?sectionId=211&rg=n&lang=en

GLOBE project manual interpretation of Landsat imagery

[19] http://www.geery.com/Norfork_MUC.htm

MUC table to help determine the local land cover types

[20] http://archive.globe.gov/tctg/land_la_analyze.pdf?sectionId=226

Activity that students use GLOBE data to analyze land cover

Affect of Global Warming on Aquatics - Week 6

[21][1] http://topomaps.usgs.gov/

Source of topographic maps to use with students

[22] http://www.globe.gov/tctg/sectionpdf.jsp?sectionId=150&rg=n&lang=en

GLOBE water temperature protocol

[23] http://www.globe.gov/tctg/sectionpdf.jsp?sectionId=152&rg=n&lang=en

GLOBE water pH protocol

[24] http://nowcoast.noaa.gov/

Real time observations of conditions along the coastal areas of the US

[25] http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Observatory/Datasets/sst.ocean.html

Ocean surface temperature animation

Sea Level Rise from Global Warming - Week 7

[26] http://www.athropolis.com/map2.htm

Map to visualize the arctic region

[27] http://www.net.org/globalwarming/sea_level/

Animations of many US with the onset of sea level rise

Affect of Global Warming on Animals - Week 8

[28] http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/studying/migration/range_maps

Range maps of common songbirds

[29] http://www.birds.cornell.edu/birdhouse/

Information and data collection of nesting box trails

[30]http://gbbc.birdsource.org/gbbcApps/report?cmd=showReport&reportName=StateSummary&state=US-DE

Backyard bird count data from the National Audubon Society

[31] http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0409/feature3/fulltext.html

National Geographic article on the effect of global warming on the

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