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overview of global climate change

10/13/2017

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The book Chemistry on a Budget contains inexpensive chemistry labs that are useful with easy to obtain materials.
 
There are two versions of each lab, one with a ten-question conclusion and one with directions for a full lab report.  This way the teacher has the option!  Each lab is two pages to allow for one two-sided handout. 
 
A 5-Star Customer Review of Chemistry on a Budget at amazon.com states:
“[S]traight forward, to the point, using household chemicals…this is the lab book for you. 
I teach high school chemistry and this is exactly what i was looking for. Labs included simple household chemicals that could be easily found. Nice format, easy to follow along procedures, and touches on every topic of our chemistry curriculum.”
 
You can buy this lab book for $23 at amazon.com or lulu.com. It will take 1-2 weeks to get to you -- Order Now.  It’s a great resource!
 
http://www.amazon.com/Chemistry-Budget-Marjorie-R-Heesemann/dp/0578129159/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389410170&sr=1-1&keywords=chemistry+on+a+budget

http://www.lulu.com/shop/marjorie-r-heesemann/chemistry-on-a-budget/paperback/product-21217600.html
 
*Some of you have already purchased my lab book – be sure to check out Page 141 !

*This Blog contains several entries that would be helpful to your chemistry classroom.  Check out the Topic List to help you to find past Blog entries.
 
Also, Write To Me about your successes, challenges, or questions in the Chemistry Classroom.
 
At this time of year schools are mailing home Progress Reports of student classroom performance.  Some past blog posts that may be helpful include:
 
07/20/2014             Classroom Grading Programs
09/30/2015             5-Week Progress Reports

Oh, and Mole Day is coming, Monday, October 23rd!  Check out past Mole Day posts:
 
01/10/2014           2nd Entry (Mole Conversions and
                                   Moletown Map)
10/20/2014           Celebrating Mole Day
10/15/2015           Mole Mathematics​
10/15/2016           Mole Day is Coming!
 
 “Scientists know that certain gases trap heat and act like a blanket to warm the planet. One of the most important is carbon dioxide (CO2), which we release into the atmosphere when we burn fossil fuels — oil, coal, and natural gas — to generate electricity, power our vehicles, and heat our homes.
As we overload our atmosphere with carbon dioxide, more and more heat is trapped — and Earth steadily warms up in response. How do we know? The scientific evidence is overwhelming.”
http://www.ucsusa.org/our-work/global-warming/science-and-impacts/global-warming-science#.WdZNxNFrzcs
 
“Timeline (Milestones)
Here are gathered in chronological sequence the most important events in the history of climate change science.”
https://history.aip.org/climate/timeline.htm
 
This brief animation (35 seconds) shows the increase in global temperatures from the years 1900 through 2016, and it’s very easy to see:
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/history-global-warming-animation-21670
 
View the graph at the top of the page showing the dramatic increase in carbon dioxide level from 1950 to the 2000s:
https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
 
“The current warming trend is of particular significance because most of it is extremely likely (greater than 95 percent probability) to be the result of human activity since the mid-20th century and proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented over decades to millennia.
Earth-orbiting satellites and other technological advances have enabled scientists to see the big picture, collecting many different types of information about our planet and its climate on a global scale. This body of data, collected over many years, reveals the signals of a changing climate.
The heat-trapping nature of carbon dioxide and other gases was demonstrated in the mid-19th century. Their ability to affect the transfer of infrared energy through the atmosphere is the scientific basis of many instruments flown by NASA. There is no question that increased levels of greenhouse gases must cause the Earth to warm in response.
Ice cores drawn from Greenland, Antarctica, and tropical mountain glaciers show that the Earth’s climate responds to changes in greenhouse gas levels. Ancient evidence can also be found in tree rings, ocean sediments, coral reefs, and layers of sedimentary rocks. This ancient, or paleoclimate, evidence reveals that current warming is occurring roughly ten times faster than the average rate of ice-age-recovery warming.”
http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/climate-science-history
This page also provides timelines and short video segments about the history and prediction of Global Warming.
 
Here is one more timeline about the topic of Climate Change/Global Warming:
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-15874560
 
“When was human-driven climate change discovered and when did the world of politics/policy first take notice?
We could begin in the 1820s when Joseph Fourier first suggested that gases in the atmosphere trap some of the sun's heat like glass in a greenhouse (hence the ‘greenhouse effect’). We could also begin in the 1860s with John Tyndall measuring the capacity of water vapor and CO2 to trap infrared light (the ground under your feet emits long wavelength infrared radiation after it is warmed by the incoming sunlight which arrives mostly at shorter wavelengths). It was Tyndall who came up with the potent metaphor of greenhouse gases as a ‘blanket’ covering the Earth. …
The first calculation of the greenhouse effect to include human-driven release of greenhouse gases came about 100 years ago. Using estimates of coal burning, Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius built on other calculations he'd made and estimated that doubling the CO2 content of the planet's atmosphere would raise its temperature by 2.5 to 4.0 degrees Celsius.
That is where it all begins.
But surely Arrhenius' calculation was too simple. Think of all the details he missed. What about the influence of the vast oceans that are constantly soaking up CO2? That must make a huge difference. It might, but that question was answered more than 60 years ago.
It was in 1957 that Roger Revelle at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Hans Suess of the U.S. Geological Survey discovered the chemical pathways of ocean CO2 uptake. Their findings showed the oceans to be limited in their ability to absorb the CO2 we released through burning fossil fuels. While their calculations have been refined over time, their basic conclusions have stood the test of time.
From Arrhrenius to Revelle to right now. That's 100 years of climate science reaching the same conclusion. “
http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2014/05/13/312128173/the-forgotten-history-of-climate-change-science
 
“Like a prehistoric fly trapped in amber during dinosaurs' days, airborne relics of Earth's earlier climate—including dust, air bubbles, sea salts, volcanic ash, and soot from forest fires—can end up trapped in glacial ice for eons. To climate scientists, those relics tell a story about how our planet's climate and atmosphere have changed over thousands of years. …
After analyzing enough ice core slices, which may each represent anywhere from a week to a year of time, a researcher can look for patterns to track changes in the atmosphere's composition and temperature, and what activity on Earth shaped it.
The ratio of ‘light’ oxygen-16 to ‘heavy’ oxygen-18 in a sample, for instance, reveals the global temperature when the ice formed; it takes colder temperatures for water vapor containing the lighter oxygen isotope to turn into precipitation. Examining the gasses trapped in ice cores is how scientists first learned that the amount of carbon dioxide and the global temperature have been linked at least the last million years of Earth's history. …
Scientists hope to collect a new ice core from the eastern side of the Trans-Antarctic Mountains, which today separate the East and West Antarctic Ice Sheets. Much of the land under the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is below sea level. If the ice sheet did disintegrate, then the proposed ice core drilling location—presently in the middle of the frozen continent—would have been coastal real estate 125,000 years ago.”
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-tech/climate-core-how-scientists-study-ice-cores-reveal-earth%E2%80%99s-climate
 
According to the Union of Concerned Scientists:
“Global warming is already having significant and harmful effects on our communities, our health, and our climate. Sea level rise is accelerating. The number of large wildfires is growing. Dangerous heat waves are becoming more common. Extreme storm events are increasing in many areas. More severe droughts are occurring in others. 
We must take immediate action to address global warming or these consequences will continue to intensify, grow ever more costly, and increasingly affect the entire planet—including you, your community, and your family.
The good news is that we have the practical solutions at hand to dramatically reduce our carbon emissions, slow the pace of global warming, and pass on a healthier, safer world to future generations.”
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming#.WdZOqtFrzcs
 
“The outcome of any significant climate change will be varied rather than simply an overall increase in average or nocturnal temperatures. Climate researchers have designed models to predict the longer-term consequences both in air and ocean circulation patterns. These reproduce observed continental-scale surface temperature patterns and trends over many decades, including the more rapid warming since the mid-20th century and the cooling immediately following large volcanic eruptions, thus giving a range and probability of climatic impacts on different regions of the world. The models are constantly being refined, and in 2013 the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or the] IPCC noted ‘differences between simulated and observed trends over periods as short as 10 to 15 years (e.g. 1998 to 2012)’, ie shorter term than the models. Climate is defined as the statistical average of weather over a long period, typically 30 years.”
http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/energy-and-the-environment/climate-change-the-science.aspx
 
Future blog posts may refer to Climate Change; also, your students may hear more about it in the news.  This could be a topic for Extra Credit research.
 
Remember, buying a copy of the lab book Chemistry on a Budget can be very useful to your Chemistry classroom with labs and class article ideas.

Have a great weekend!

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    Marjorie R. Heesemann is a chemistry teacher with 15 years of experience who is now working to develop resources for the Chemistry classroom.

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