4. Evidence of Our Changing Climate (reading and 2 videos)

Evidence of climate change can be observed in many places on Earth.

Please take a close look at the 2017 Climate Science Special Report Chapter 1, Our Globally Changing Climate (a part of the National Climate Assessment); https://science2017.globalchange.gov/chapter/1/.  This chapter will give you a good sense of the changes in climate that have been observed and how they are consistent with evidence of a warming planet.

Below are a couple visualizations of data that also illustrates some of the climate trends for global temperatures and Greenland Ice Mass.

NASA/GSFC Scientific Visualization Studio's 2016 animation of global temperature anomalies (compared to 1951-1980 normal). (0:27) 

An animation of Greenland Ice Mass Loss, using GRACE data. (0:48) 

Now, take a look at the 2014 National Climate Assessment (http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/) and read through the highlights (http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/highlights/overview/overview) pages. This overview will give us a good synopsis of the science behind our understanding of global climate changes and adds in some really nice visuals to illustrate the many points.  A really good resource.

You can access more information about any of the U.S. Global Change Research Program reports and assessments through their web site (http://www.globalchange.gov/browse/reports)

NOTE: So we are toggling between a couple of documents/websites here that are all part of the same family put out by the US Global Change Research Program (A collection of 13 Federal Agencies doing work to understand changes in the climate and how these changes will impact us; this work was mandated by congress in 1989), the 2014 National Climate Assessment and the 2017 Climate Science Special Report. The choice of resource we are using in this case depends on which has the most up-to-date information and the ease of use.

Last modified: Wednesday, May 9, 2018, 8:32 AM