Readings and Articles
For this module, please:
- Read Chapter 19: Global Climate Change.
- Know the tools for studying climate change – How do we track climate change?
- Know the effects of climate change – How do we know it’s happening?
- Pay close attention to the concepts of the Greenhouse Effect, Forcing, and the coupling of Ozone Depletion and Global Warming.
- You do not need to read the “Closer Look” section on El Nino.
- Read the EPA’s State of Knowledge regarding Global Climate Change. Understand the difference between “What is Known;” “What is very likely;” and “What is not Certain.” (Note: Some scientists (including government scientists) claimed that the Bush Administration removed scientific arguments and data from this website that conflicted with the Administrations political policies. Recently, the site has improved in portraying what scientists are finding.)
Additional resources you may check out:
- Read the 2007 IPCC Report. The IPCC has 3 different focus groups studying climate change; scroll down to mid-page to access the reports of these groups. To save yourself LOTS of reading, choose the "Summary for Policymakers & Technical Summary" for each working group. These are the Cliff Notes versions of the lengthy reports and contain just the most important information and take-away messages.
- View the website www.globalwarming.org. Although the name may lead you to think this is run by an environmental group, it’s actually a website sponsored by special interest groups that pollute greenhouse gasses. The website has some useful resources as long as you realize the bias of those running the website. Their “For Students” section is heavily biased and misrepresents a lot of the scientific data.
- Visit the National Resources Defense Council’s website on global warming. This is run by an environmental group (and has some bias as a result)—but is much more non-partisan than the above website
In case you are bored this weekend:
- Read "Fixing Climate" by Wally Broecker. Broecker is a leading climate scientist and researcher and discusses the causes and more importantly, the possible "fixes" to abrubpt climate change. This book is part autobiography, part geology text and part "call to action"; its an interesting and informative look into climate change.
- Rent the Day After Tomorrow. The movie provides a fictional scenario where global warming triggers massive global cooling, wreaking short term havoc with sea level and weather. Use your environmental geology knowledge to decide what is and is not true in this movie!
- Rent An Inconvenient Truth. The documentary captures the past climates Earth has experienced, and how evidence indicates a climatic disruption in the near future.