April
2008

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Teach climate change

The Wildest Weather on Earth
And
Coolest Winter Since 2001 for U.S., Globe

It's a controversial subject, but that's no reason to keep it out of the classroom

Teach climate change
By Tom Wagner and Kathleen Gorski
The Los Angeles Times

Is the science of global warming too controversial to be included in science textbooks?

A California state Senate bill, which passed the chamber in January, would mandate that climate change be a science topic taught in the state's public schools. But the legislation, now in the Assembly, has drawn fire from some lawmakers, who say the science is too controversial for inclusion in the curriculum. They want guarantees that the views of skeptics will be included.

But those objections are just silly. The reality is that there is no disagreement any longer among scientists on the major principles, causes and effects of global warming. The world's largest and most reputable scientific societies, such as the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science, all concur that the burning of fossil fuels is putting so much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that the Earth has been pushed off its natural cycle and is warming. As a result, sea levels will rise as ice sheets melt. Low-lying coastal regions will flood. And droughts and storms may become more frequent and severe.

That's what the science tells us, and teaching students about it is perfectly appropriate. Climate change will directly affect how young people live. They are inundated with information about it, and it is already guiding some of their career choices. But they need a message of hope. Too often the media and scientific community offer only predictions of doom and gloom. Accurate or not, young people need to feel empowered. And the best way to do that is to let them explore climate change in the classroom.

There are plenty of legitimate and fascinating subjects for students to debate. Among the most important questions: Will the ice caps melt away slowly or will they disintegrate in catastrophic events? Figuring this out will tell us whether sea levels will rise a few inches or many feet in the next 100 years.

Here's another question for students to think about: How much methane will be released by the melting of Arctic permafrost? Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, and larger concentrations of it in the atmosphere would cause a major jump in temperatures. But do higher temperatures result in more clouds? Clouds could slow warming by reflecting more sunlight back into space, though we need to better understand how clouds form before we can incorporate them into predictive models of the Earth's temperature.

Given all of this uncertainty, the subject will certainly continue to be controversial; answers to these questions may have political and policy implications that students will have to grapple with.

There are many reasons to teach science, not the least of which is that it is inherently interesting and fun. Who doesn't marvel at the structure and behavior of a cell upon seeing it for the first time through a microscope?

Science is also important because it is among the best ways to train students to think critically and orderly. Only in science is it polite to say, "Prove it to me!" And good science repeatedly does, through testing and retesting of evidence, assumptions and methods. This approach provides us a common language to interpret the world.

But learning science is difficult. So science education tends to focus on phenomena that we know a great deal about and can explain most easily, such as the laws of motion as applied to a pendulum.

The problem is that a curriculum built solely on these tried-and-true examples is boring. Students know their work only replicates something already known. They don't see ways that they might one day explore and advance the field.

Controversial science, on the other hand, inspires. It poses grand questions, debates new theories and offers answers that can take on political overtones because of their implications for society. There is already a lot of it in the curriculum. The most obvious example is evolution, the controversy about which can be summed up with an understatement: Although the science is not in question, the theory is at odds with some religious beliefs.

Interestingly, less politically charged topics are often more scientifically controversial and are associated with far more uncertainty.

Take the Big Bang. While we generally accept it as the origin of the universe, and scientists have compiled tremendous and compelling evidence for what it was like, we have no idea what caused it. Even less grandiose topics like plate tectonics are controversial. Anyone looking at a globe can see that the continents fit together, and we have satellite measurements that prove they are moving. But we still don't know what drives them. Should we take the science out of schools?

Climate-change science is no different from these topics and other emerging areas of science already in the curriculum, such as dark matter and genetic engineering. And according to the National Science Teachers Assn., climate-change science meets every national education standard while lending itself to compelling teaching.

So let's get climate change and other controversial science into the curriculum. We do a disservice to students and educators to do otherwise.

Tom Wagner is the program director for Earth sciences for the U.S. Antarctic Program at the National Science Foundation. Kathleen Gorski is a science teacher and Einstein Fellow at the National Science Foundation. Their views are their own and do not reflect official views of the National Science Foundation.

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Discover the Earth's Magnetic Personality

A gigantic spot, large enough to swallow the Earth in one gulp, slides into view on the edge of the Sun's surface. It creeps over a period of days across the Sun's visible disk, growing ominously. As it nears the Sun's center a massive solar flare erupts from the spot, triggering a coronal mass ejection that hurls billions of tons of hot plasma directly at our planet! Is this the end of life on Earth? What can save us from being baked like cookies?

Actually, this scenario has played out countless times in the Earth's history. The reason we're not all just crispy spots on the ground is that the Earth has a powerful magnetic field that deflects the solar plasma toward the North and South Poles. The only visible effect of this process is the aurora, which occurs when the energetic plasma strikes the atmosphere. But it's possible, with a little know-how and some easy to find materials, to see the effect solar plasma has on our protective magnetic field.

As part of its public education efforts NASA has developed a series of simple classroom experiments that illustrate a number of principles from planetary and space science. This article, A Soda Bottle Magnetometer, describes how to make a device to measure how much the Earth's magnetic field flexes when it's struck by a coronal mass ejection. The magnetometer is essentially a very sensitive magnetic compass, and it's quite easy to build. It's also an easy project to "set it and forget it." You can set one up in a quiet corner and look at it occasionally; if the kids notice some activity you can take them to the NOAA Estimated 3-hour Planetary Kp-Index Web page to see if the professionals have seen the same magnetic activity. Strong fluctuations in Earth's magnetic field can indicate aurora activity, too. If you see a large change in the magnetic field in the evening, give a look to the sky outside. You may be rewarded with some visible aurora.

Sunspot activity should pick up over the next five years or so, since a new 11-year sunspot cycle has just begun. So keep this little project in mind to show the kids that it's possible to see the invisible if you know how to look.

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Elisabeth Cohen
Graduate Researcher and Lecturer
Meteorology Department
University of Utah

Sincerely,
Lis
www.WeatherOutreach.org

An Excerpt from Weather Outreach.org

NASA Satellite Measures Pollution From East Asia to North America
By: Gretchen Cook-Anderson
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

In a new NASA study, researchers taking advantage of improvements in satellite sensor capabilities offer the first measurement-based estimate of the amount of pollution from East Asian forest fires, urban exhaust, and industrial production that makes its way to western North America.

China, the world’s most populated country, has experienced rapid industrial growth, massive human migrations to urban areas, and considerable expansion in automobile use over the last two decades. As a result, the country has doubled its emissions of man-made pollutants to become the world’s largest emitter of tiny particles called pollution aerosols that are transported across the Pacific Ocean by rapid airstreams emanating from East Asia.

Hongbin Yu, an associate research scientist of the University of Maryland Baltimore County working at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., grew up in China and taught there as a university professor, where he witnessed first-hand and studied how pollution from nearby power plants in China affected the local environment. Early this decade, scientists began using emerging high-accuracy satellite data to answer key questions about the role tiny particles play in the atmosphere, and eventually expanded their research to include continent-to-continent pollution transport. So Yu teamed with other researchers to take advantage of the innovations in satellite technology and has now made the first-ever satellite-based estimate of pollution aerosols transported from East Asia to North America.

The new measurements from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on NASA’s Terra satellite substantiate the results of previous model-based studies, and are the most extensive to date. The new study will be published this spring in the American Geophysical Union’s Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres.

“We used the latest satellite capabilities to distinguish industrial pollution and smoke from dust transported to the western regions of North America from East Asia. Looking at four years of data from 2002 to 2005 we estimated the amount of pollution arriving in North America to be equivalent to about 15 percent of local emissions of the U.S. and Canada,” Yu said. “This is a significant percentage at a time when the U.S. is trying to decrease pollution emissions to boost overall air quality. This means that any reduction in our emissions may be offset by the pollution aerosols coming from East Asia and other regions.”

Yu and his colleagues measured the trans-Pacific flow of pollution in teragrams, a unit of measurement of the mass of pollution aerosol (1 teragram is about 2.2 billion pounds). Satellite data confirmed 18 teragrams -- almost 40 billion pounds -- of pollution aerosol was exported to the northwestern Pacific Ocean and 4.5 teragrams – nearly 10 billion pounds -- reached North America annually from East Asia over the study period.

Yu points out, however, that the matter of pollution transport is a global one. “Our study focused on East Asian pollution transport, but pollution also flows from Europe, North America, the broader Asian region and elsewhere, across bodies of water and land, to neighboring areas and beyond,” he said. “So we should not simply blame East Asia for this amount of pollution flowing into North America.” In fact, in a model study published last November in the Journal of Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Mian Chin, also a co-author of this study and an atmospheric scientist at NASA Goddard, suggests that European pollution also makes a significant contribution to the pollution inflow to North America.

“Satellite instruments give us the ability to capture more accurate measurements, on a nearly daily basis across a broader geographic region and across a longer time frame so that the overall result is a better estimate than any other measurement method we’ve had in the past,” said study co-author Lorraine Remer, a physical scientist and member of the MODIS science team at NASA Goddard. The MODIS instrument can distinguish between broad categories of particles in the air, and observes Earth’s entire surface every one to two days, enabling it to monitor movement of the East Asian pollution aerosols as they rise into the lower troposphere, the area of the atmosphere where we live and breathe, and make their way across the Pacific and up into the middle and upper regions of the troposphere.

Remer added that the research team also found that pollution movements fluctuate during the year, with the East Asian airstream carrying its largest “load” in spring and smallest in summer. The most extensive East Asian export of pollution across the Pacific took place in 2003, triggered by record-breaking wildfires across vast forests of East Asia and Russia. Notably, the pollution aerosols also travel quickly. They cross the ocean and journey into the atmosphere above North American in as little as one week.

“Using this imaging instrument, we cannot determine at what level of elevation in the atmosphere pollution travels. So, we do not have a way in this study to assess the degree of impact the pollution aerosols from China have on air quality here once they cross over to North America. We need improved technology to make that determination,” said Remer. “Nevertheless, we realize there is indeed impact. For example, particles like these have been linked to regional weather and climate effects through interactions between pollution aerosols and the Sun's heat energy. Since pollution transport is such a broad global issue, it is important moving forward to extend this kind of study to other regions, to see how much pollution is migrating from its source regions to others, when, and how fast,” said Remer. Click here to read the rest of the story.

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The Wildest Weather on Earth

The world’s wildest and most varied weather is here in the United States. Hurricanes, blizzards, ice storms, thunderstorms, tornadoes, floods and drought batter our country each year. In fact, no other nation endures the wide range of weather we see here.

The weather affects people in many different ways, and we all can benefit from knowing how to cope with it. A coach will pull his youth soccer team from the field when there is a lightning threat. A mom who hears the announcement of a tornado watch will be listening for further alerts and warnings and be prepared to move her family to safety if a tornado threatens. A school bus driver will know to turn the bus around when he encounters water covering the road. From farmers, pilots and construction workers, to kids getting ready for school, NOAA helps the nation prepare for the changing weather.

NOAA has many teams working to help protect lives and property through observations, predictions, and science.

Sentinels of the skies

From the outer reaches of our atmosphere to the surface of the Earth, the NOAA National Weather Service is watching over our nation and your neighborhood. The NWS gathers weather data, makes weather predictions, and alerts us to weather emergencies.  And most of this information is available free to everyone in the world.

NOAA's National and Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service maintains our satellites and is in charge of a database of weather information used in weather forecasting as well as historical climate records and research we use to improve forecasting ability.

Predicting the unpredictable

Technology and knowledge expands our horizons. NOAA Research, or the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, provides the foundation for understanding the complex systems that affect our planet. NOAA Research works to provide better forecasts, earlier warnings for natural disasters and a greater understanding of the Earth — to learn how to predict the unpredictable. NOAA research matters!

The National Severe Storms Laboratory is a leader in studying all aspects of severe weather. Located in Norman, Okla., the heart of tornado alley, NSSL partners with the NWS and other groups to improve severe weather forecasts and warnings in order to save lives and reduce property damage.

The Earth Systems Research Laboratory scrutinizes everything from space weather to climate change and the way weather affects aviation.

The Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory studies hurricanes, ocean current and temperature structures, ocean/atmosphere chemical exchanges, and the coastal ocean.

The Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory conducts research on weather and hurricane forecasts, El Niño prediction, stratospheric ozone depletion, and global warming.

The Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory is working to improve our understanding of the physical and geochemical processes operating in the world oceans.

In the arena of the world’s wildest weather, NOAA scientists and forecasters are doing their best to observe and predict the unpredictable, and protect lives and property. 

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Coolest Winter Since 2001 for U.S., Globe
By: John Leslie, NOAA

The average temperature across both the contiguous U.S. and the globe during climatological winter (December 2007-February 2008) was the coolest since 2001, according to scientists at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. In terms of winter precipitation, Pacific storms, bringing heavy precipitation to large parts of the West, produced high snowpack that will provide welcome runoff this spring.

A complete analysis is available online.

U.S. Winter Temperature Highlights

U.S. Winter Precipitation Highlights

Global Highlights

The Mystery of Global Warming's Missing Heat
By: Richard Harris
National Public Radio

Some 3,000 scientific robots that are plying the ocean have sent home a puzzling message. These diving instruments suggest that the oceans have not warmed up at all over the past four or five years. That could mean global warming is in question.

This is puzzling in part because here on the surface of the Earth, the years since 2003 have been some of the hottest on record. But Josh Willis at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory says the oceans are what really matter when it comes to global warming.

In fact, 80 percent to 90 percent of global warming involves heating up ocean waters. They hold much more heat than the atmosphere can. So Willis has been studying the ocean with a fleet of robotic instruments called the Argo system. The buoys can dive 3,000 feet down and measure ocean temperature. Since the system was fully deployed in 2003, it has recorded no warming of the global oceans.

"There has been a very slight cooling, but not anything really significant," Willis says. In recent years, heat has actually been flowing out of the ocean and into the air. This is a feature of the weather phenomenon known as El Nino. So it is indeed possible the air has warmed but the ocean has not. But it's also possible that something more mysterious is going on.

That becomes clear when you consider what's happening to global sea level. Sea level rises when the oceans get warm because warmer water expands. This accounts for about half of global sea level rise. So with the oceans not warming, you would expect to see less sea level rise. Instead, sea level has risen about half an inch in the past four years. That's a lot.

Willis says some of this water is apparently coming from a recent increase in the melting rate of glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica.

"But in fact there's a little bit of a mystery. We can't account for all of the sea level increase we've seen over the last three or four years," he says.

Kevin Trenberth at the National Center for Atmospheric Research says it's probably going back out into space. The Earth has a number of natural thermostats, including clouds, which can either trap heat and turn up the temperature, or reflect sunlight and help cool the planet.

That can't be directly measured at the moment, however.

"Unfortunately, we don't have adequate tracking of clouds to determine exactly what role they've been playing during this period," Trenberth says.

"I suspect that we'll able to put this together with a little bit more perspective and further analysis," Trenberth says. "But what this does is highlight some of the issues and send people back to the drawing board."

Greenhouse Gases

Life in a greenhouse? How ghastly!

A greenhouse is for growing plants. It is made of glass or clear plastic to let in lots of sunlight. But why not just put the plants outside? A greenhouse stays warmer than the air outside. Instead of cooling off at night, it traps some of the heat inside to keep the plants warm. Even in the winter, with no heat source but the Sun on a clear day, a greenhouse stays warmer than the air outside. In the summer, if a greenhouse gets too hot, the gardener can open the windows and doors and maybe turn on a fan.

Greenhouse Earth?

 A greenhouse is terrific if all you want to do is grow heat-loving plants. But what if Earth's atmosphere started to behave like a too-hot greenhouse? Don't forget, we cannot open Earth's windows or doors to cool it off. Earth as a closed-up greenhouse would soon grow to be ghastly!

If you made our Gummy Greenhouse Gas models, you may wonder why the molecules you made with gumdrops are called greenhouse gases. Here is why: If the atmosphere contains too much of these gases, the whole Earth becomes a hotter and hotter greenhouse. The atmosphere holds onto too much of the heat at night instead of letting it escape into space. Then, the next day, the Sun heats Earth's surface even more.

Our burning desires

Some of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are caused by humans. Whenever we burn anything, such as—

—we pollute our atmosphere with carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. Although carbon monoxide does not act as a greenhouse gas, it is poisonous to breathe.

Click here to see the rest of the lesson plan.

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Space Weather Action Center

Imagine being able to monitor the progress of an entire solar storm from the time it erupts from our sun until it sweeps past our small planet effecting enormous changes in our magnetic field. Now imagine being able to do all of this from your classroom-based Space Weather Action Center (S.W.A.C.)! By following the basic steps in the Instructional Guide your class will soon be on its way to accessing, analyzing and recording NASA satellite and observatory data. You will also want to download the 'step-by-step' Educator's Setup Guide where you will find a variety of recommendations and diagrams showing you how to construct a fully functional SWAC inside your classroom while keeping potential limitations on classroom space and technology in mind.

Once established your class will be ready to move into the second cross-disciplinary phase of the program where they will transform their journal data into real S.W.A.C. news reports! We've made this phase easy by providing an adaptable SWAC script! All they have to do is fill in the missing pieces based on the data collected in their student journals. In the S.W.A.C. Setup Guide we have suggested several very inexpensive alternative methods by which you can produce multimedia Space Weather Action Reports.

DATA COLLECTION SHEETS

Bring your journals to life with these 'easy to understand' Data Collection Sheets. Each sheet provides the necessary questions and refreshers on how to interpret necessary space weather data.

FLIP CHARTS

Ensure student success by printing and posting all of the necessary student instructions to each of the stations in your Space Weather Action Center!