Climate Expedition

Lesson 6: Earth System Change

National Park Service: NPS.gov What is Climate Change?

Why won't we stop putting carbon in the air?

Mr. M's Students said this:

Ary & London: People don't care enough to think about because thinking is hard.

Leo, Steven, Marielis: People use oil as a habit and it is hard to break habits.

Ariella, Kaylie, Niara: We feel successful by using fossil fuels to make things. That's who we are now.

JoJo & Ivan: We don't have easy alternatives.

Jose & Danny: We depend on the fuels to live so we can't easily switch over.

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The patterns we watch, and what they tell us:

What global data do we collect and analyze for trends (patterns)?

average global temperature, atmospheric CO₂

What local weather do we track?

temperature averages, highs and lows, rain & snow amounts, signs of spring, water levels …

Reminder

Random Weather or Climate Change?

Why?

Reminder

When is Extreme Weather caused by Climate Change?

Pattern analysis (looking at averages and frequency) can tell us whether climate change made an event more likely or more severe.

Pattern analysis can't tell us if climate change "caused" a single event in a yes-or-no way.

Extreme heat and rainfall events are easier to tie to climate than fires, droughts, or tornadoes.

If climate change patterns make extreme weather more likely in places, communities can plan to protect themselves or recover faster.

Reminder

What Are Our CO₂ and Temperature Trends?

1. Measuring Carbon Dioxide Concentrations�(which tend to match mean global temperatures)

The amount of CO₂ rises and falls with the seasons.

Burning Coal, Oil and Gas

Reminder

http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/bigs/corp2689.jpg

noaa.gov

BUT CO₂ has been increasing every year since 1900.

Mauna Loa says: CO₂ is up 100 ppm since 1960.

How much is that?

Reminder

A natural change of 100ppm normally occurs over 5,000 to 20,000 years.

�The recent increase of 100ppm has taken 120 years.

Highest previous level: 300 ppm

2. The "Earth System" Patterns Can Change.

"Snowballs" and "Hothouses" have happened before.

Periods of Glaciation Match Low CO₂ Concentrations

"Snowball Earth"

Our Lowest Point: Snowball Earth

In the Late Cretaceous, 94 million years ago, volcanoes increased our Greenhouse Effect to make Hothouse Earth.

Carbon dioxide was released by volcanoes, warming the climate, melting glaciers, and raising the sea level. Underwater volcanoes pumped nutrients into the water. This resulted in enormous blooms of floating microscopic plants (phytoplankton), while land plants grew faster. Both events added more oxygen into the atmosphere. The high levels of oxygen in the atmosphere led to frequent and very hot wildfires across the planet.

The greenhouse conditions ended as volcanic activity slowed and blooms of phytoplankton reduced levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. As these blooms died, the oceans were depleted of oxygen. The build up of organic material on ocean floors during this period is the source of much of the world’s oil and gas.

Hottest Point in 100 million years:

the Cretaceous

Exciting Times for the Carbon Cycle

9,000 gigatons of carbon were released in the Earth’s atmosphere just before the K-G boundary.

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The researchers concluded that this massive carbon release may have been triggered by volcanic eruptions that tore through carboniferous coal beds and started a large number of wildfires.

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The rapid warming caused by these events may have melted permafrost, leading to the release of even more organic carbon in the atmosphere.

The massive asteroid impact that ended the age of dinosaurs some 66 million years ago triggered a decades-long, deadly, global "impact winter," an analysis of ancient sediment confirmed on Monday.

Sea temperatures dropped as much as 12.6 degrees Fahrenheit (7 degrees Celsius) after the Chicxulub crater blast blanketed the planet in ashy darkness, halting photosynthesis, concludes the team led Johan Vellekoop of Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

Climate change from this freezing global winter caused the extinction of any dinosaurs that happened to survive the cold period, along with three-quarters of the remaining species on Earth.

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First Volcanoes, then Asteroids…Now Humans.

How Should We Feel?

When it's 90 degrees in April and we love warm sunny days but now we know why ….

Circle Topic:

• Feelings about Climate Change

Why

• Climate change is scary
• We need to acknowledge our feelings
• We need to figure out what to do with them.eelings?

Rounds

1. How did I feel about those 90 degree days before break?
2. What am I feeling about climate change now? Is this new?
3. What movie made me have similar feelings? Why did it?
4. What did the movie people do with those feelings? Fix it?
5. What do I want to do with my climate change feelings?

What should we do?