This is the first of three short videos showcasing the dramatic changes in Alaska's marine ecosystems. This introduction to the impacts of climate change in Alaska includes interviews with Alaska Natives, commentary by scientists, and footage from Alaska's Arctic.
In this activity students work with data to analyze local and global temperature anomaly data to look for warming trends. The activity focuses on the Great Lakes area.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
Paul Andersen explains how the climate on the earth is affected by the amount of solar radiation and the greenhouse affect. The addition of anthropogenic greenhouse gases has led to global warming which is impacting humans on the planet. A discussion of the greenhouse effect and greenhouse gases (including water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and CFCs) is included. Countries have committed to reduce through both the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement.
Material Type: Lecture
The activity follows a progression that examines the CO2 content of various gases, explores the changes in the atmospheric levels of CO2 from 1958 to 2000 from the Mauna Loa Keeling curve, and the relationship between CO2 and temperature over the past 160,000 years. This provides a foundation for examining individuals' input of CO2 to the atmosphere and how to reduce it.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
In this video, a PhD Student from the University of Maine explains how ice cores are used to study global climate change.
Effects of climate change on biodiversity. Video by California Academy of Sciences. Created by California Academy of Sciences.
Material Type: Lesson
In this lesson, students explore how human activities will continue to impact Antarctic ice, discuss human contributions to climate change, and investigate what we can do to stop/reverse these negative effects.
Material Type: Lesson
The main content objectives covered in this unit are the phenomena of global warming, carbon cycle, ocean acidification, and its impact on plants, animals, and the marine ecosystem. The main purpose of this is to provide the reader with the basic knowledge base about these processes and understand the main players that are responsible for them. Fossil fuel pollution by human activities is contributing to the increase in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Some of the CO2 is being absorbed by the oceans. This process increases the number of free hydrogen ions in the oceans, making the ocean water more acidic. This phenomenon is called ocean acidification. When oceans become acidic, they can negatively affect the plants, living organisms such as shell-forming organisms, and other marine life. The results of this process are devastating and this unit hopes to bring students’ attention to these dangers.
Material Type: Lesson Plan, Unit of Study
Facing sea level rise, increasing numbers of wildfires, and encroachment of invasive species, managers of a national forest chose to integrate climate change into their new plan.
Material Type: Case Study
Our planet is currently being challenged by dramatic changes to earth and human systems under the influence of climate change and variability. These include changes of population and environmental dynamics that impacts human health. Thus, climate change is considered the biggest threat to human health in the 21st century. Health impacts can be direct typically related to extreme weather events; indirect with linkages to climate change induced environmental alterations and damage or in relation to displacement, conflict and social disruption. This presentation provides a series of examples of changes of environmental and social determinants of health with negative or positive health impacts. These include impacts on communicable diseases, non-communicable diseases and mental health of importance in particular in vulnerable urban and rural settings as well as among sensitive community groups exposed to variations in temperature and precipitation patterns.
Material Type: Lecture
This activity uses two interactive simulations to illustrate climate change, 1) at the micro/molecular level - modeling the impact of increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere on surface temperature and 2) at the macro level - modeling changes in glacier thickness and flow as a result of rising surface temperature.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
This short video illustrates how warming ocean temperature is a major factor in climate change, particularly the increase in severity of extreme weather (notably storms and drought).
With valuable cultural and dietary assets at risk from sea level rise, this Pacific Northwest Tribe developed a plan to identify community adaptation priorities and concerns, and charted a course of action to address them.
Material Type: Case Study
In this video segment adapted from Haskell Indian Nations University, student filmmakers explain why it is important to them to make a video about climate change.
Material Type: Lesson
Reduced flows and increased demand for Colorado River water represent a real and present danger in the West. To address the threat, water managers and modelers initiated a study to understand the system, consider options, and take action.
Material Type: Case Study
In this multi-part activity, students distinguish between adaptation and mitigation, in response to climate change, and research and discuss/debate strategies to minimize the effects of climate change.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
In this video, a team of paleontologists, paleobotanists, soil scientists, and other researchers take to the field in Wyoming's Bighorn Basin to document how the climate, plants, and animals there changed during the Paleocene- Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM). During this time a sudden, enormous influx of carbon flooded the ocean and atmosphere for reasons that are still unclear to scientists. The PETM is used as an analog to the current warming. The scientists' research may help inform our understanding of current increases in carbon in the atmosphere and ocean and the resulting impact on ecosystems.
This video highlights the Pentagon's focus on climate change as the military examines potential risks, strategic responses, and impacts of climate change on future military and humanitarian missions. In 2010, for the first time, the Pentagon focused on climate change as a significant factor in its Quadrennial Defense Review of potential risks and strategic responses. Rear Admiral David Titley, Oceanographer of the Navy, explains why the US military sees clear evidence of climate change and how those changes will affect future military and humanitarian missions.
Polar ice sheets are sensitive indicators of current climate and also preserve evidence of past climate conditions. Scientists studying Earth's climate history core thousands of meters deep into ancient ice to retrieve gas bubbles trapped in ice sheets. Ice cores help reconstruct climatic conditions from hundreds of thousands of years ago. Join Dr. Jeff Severinghaus as he explains how gas bubbles are trapped, how they provide detailed chemical clues to the past and how they are helping to shape future climate scenarios. (45 minutes)
Material Type: Lecture
Join Scripps Institution of OceanographyŐs Robert Pinkel as he provides a window into the cold world of Arctic oceanography and illustrates how the interplay between sea ice and ocean circulation impacts Earth's climate. (51 minutes)
Material Type: Lecture
