Topic Guide:
The Influence of Human Activities on the Climate
In
this activity you will form groups, conduct research into the effect human
activities on the global climate, and report back to your lab section in the
form of a presentation. At the end of this activity you will find suggestions
for the format of the presentation. You will use the data you investigate
as evidence for your statements. Please use these suggestions and the “How
to make a class presentation” (Resource 1) as guidelines for your presentation.
Overview:
The
most important environmental issues are focused on how human activities are
affecting the Earth’s ability to support life in all of its diversity
and richness, in the long term. There are many stakeholders in these issues
and they each emphasize claims that support their best interests. For example,
large polluting industries most often emphasize the natural variability of
the earth’s climate and flaws in the computer simulations. On the other
side, environmentally focused groups argue that the science is good (even
if not perfect) and that we should adopt the “precautionary principle,”
which emphasizes prevention over cure, like the saying from Poor Richard’s
Almanac: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” These
issues are enormously important. Our actions as a civilization, may determine
the future sustainability of our planet.
Key processes and concepts to review before beginning:
Resources:
After completing this investigation you should be able to:
You can immediately begin exploring the data, but if you need more background information about human activities that affect global climate, please review the websites that provide background information (found after the data section).
Data:
Go to the Geography Dataset, and
open the Human Geography datasets. Select the population density (1984)
dataset and the carbon emissions (1987) dataset. These data
sets represent a single year, and not a month by month changing set of data
like we saw in the “First timer Seasonal Activity” tutorial. Remember
that you can zoom in on these maps. By using the synchronized mouse button,
you can get data for the same area from each of the maps and when you zoom
in on one, you automatically zoom into the data on the other.
Find an area of high carbon emissions
and zoom in. Do areas of high carbon emissions have the highest population
densities? Find an example of where this is true and where it isn’t
true.
Why might these regions have
such high carbon emissions? What type of fuel does the region use for energy?
Is the region highly industrial?
Where are the areas with the
highest population densities?
Now access more up to date climatic
data from the Internet through a browser, either Internet Explorer or Netscape.
Go to the web site:
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/instrumental.html
Click on the first figure on the
web site. This is the data for global temperature anomalies for a little more
than the last 100 years. An anomaly is defined as the departure of
calculated mean temperature from the long-term mean temperature values. The three graphs depict surface temperature as reconstructed
by three different scientific agencies. Click on the figure and a larger version will open in a new
browser window.
What can you say about global
temperature for the past 100 years? Make sure to back up your statements with
the data.
Do the datasets from the three
different agencies agree?
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/hemglob99.gif
These graphs depict the average
hemispheric (Northern, Southern) and global time series for average temperatures
anomalies for the past 150 years.
Do you see any difference between
temperatures in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres?
What causes these differences? Think about the geographic position of continents on the
Earth. Are they equally distributed or concentrated in one of the hemispheres?
Now you have established a general trend for global temperatures over the last 100 plus years, look at the data for the concentration of certain greenhouse gases during that same time period.
This graph shows the mean monthly concentration of carbon dioxide (as measured from Mauna Loa) since 1957.
Why do you think this change is occurring? What are some
of the possible causes of the change in the concentration of atmospheric CO2?
Atmospheric concentration of Carbon Dioxide (CO2)
http://www.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccgg/gallery/index.php?pageType=folder&currDir=./Data_Figures
This page gives you a choice of images. Browse them and see what meaning you can make from them. Notice that one of the axes is labeled “Latitude" in some of the figures.
What can you say about the concentration of CO2 in the marine boundary layer in the Northern
versus Southern Hemisphere? Winds don't travel across the equator, but mixing occurs within
hemispheres. Cite the data.
Atmospheric concentration of CH4 (Methane): Methane is a greenhouse gas. Select the Methane plots from this set of figures.
http://www.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccgg/gallery/index.php?pageType=folder&currDir=./Data_Figures
Interpret the data on each of the two graphs. What does the top graph suggest about the relationship between concentration of atmospheric CH4 and average global temperature? Where does the data come from? What does the second graph suggest about the global growth rate of atmospheric CH4? Where does the data come from? Can you offer a suggestion as to why the global growth rate of atmospheric CH4 is changing?
What is the general trend of the global average concentration
of methane over the last 15 years?
http://www.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccgg/gallery/index.php?pageType=folder&currDir=./Data_Figures
Notice that there is a similar (to CO2) relationship with the concentration of CH4 in the marine boundary layer in the Northern versus Southern Hemispheres.
Why would CH4 (methane) production be concentrated in
the Northern hemisphere?
Atmospheric concentration of CO (Carbon Monoxide): Carbon Monoxide is also an anthropogenic greenhouse gas.
http://www.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccgg/gallery/index.php?pageType=folder&currDir=./Data_Figures
Notice the similar (to CO2 and CH4) relationship with the concentration of CO in the marine boundary layer in the Northern versus Southern Hemispheres.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/environm.html
Climate change data, forecasts
and analysis
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/environm.html#Data
International carbon dioxide emissions from the consumption and flaring of fossil fuels (petroleum, natural gas, and coal) data
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/data/update/gistemp/
Data and Images of Surface Temperature Analysis. The above site allows you to make a map of temperature change relative to specific years.
http://earthtrends.wri.org/conditions_trends/feature_select_action.cfm?theme=3
The above site connects to the “World Resource Institute”, which has interesting slide shows about the Kyoto Protocol and carbon emissions.
Here are a number of good web sites that contain information about increased concentrations of greenhouse gases due to human activity. Please take some time to learn more about the background information available for this topic. If you learn something new and interesting, please share it with the lab in your presentation. Some of these sites contain data and some of them will be useful in preparing information concerning your Earth Summit country.
Worldwide carbon emissions: especially the figures and the tables.
http://www.worldwatch.org/alerts/990727.html
The buying and selling of "allowances" to emit CO2 and its equivalents:
http://www.science.org.au/nova/054/054key.htm
Forestry and climate change: http://www.rcfa-cfan.org/english/issues.13.html
The coming climate: http://www.sciam.com/0597issue/0597karl.html
Global warming and health: http://www.stanford.edu/~moore/health.html
Your presentation should include a brief overview explaining the significance of the effect of man on global climate. You should then choose several topics to investigate using the climatic data. Choose topics that you think might be relevant to understanding climate change and man’s affect on it. Your presentation should include interesting findings from your investigations, backed up with data. Be sure to develop an argument that addresses the extent to which you think humans are causing global warming. What are the uncertainties?
You may choose from the following
list of topics, or investigate a topic of your own. The topics in the list
are examples of investigations that could be made using the data available
at the URL's listed above.
Data
driven topics:
Overview
type topics:
