Lake Michigan College Physical Geology 104/290
Lab Exercise 13 – Global Climate Change
This week we consider evidence for global climate change and the impact on the environment. There is considerable debate as to the rate and degree of change we can expect. Because of Earth's ancient climate cycles there is also disagreement over what steps should be taken to slow global warming or if human activity (principally the burning of fossil fuels and industrial agriculture) is responsible.
Please read / view the following materials after you read your text and view the class presentation. Answer the questions that immediately follow each entry to complete this lab exercise.
· Refer to Section XXXXXXXXXXDetecting Climate Change
1. Instrumental records only go back a couple of centuries. However, we can use “proxy data” to reconstruct Earth’s climate hundreds of millions of years. List and
iefly explain each of these indirect forms of evidence.
· Watch The History of Climate Cycles (15 min)
· Read and view the animation Why Milankovitch Cycles Can’t Explain Earth’s Cu
ent Warming
2. Explain how eccentricity, precession, and obliquity in Earth’s o
it affects global climate, and how these factors can’t account for the cu
ent rate of global warming.
· Watch The Last Time the Globe Warmed (11 min)
3. Compare how long it took for Earth to warm in the ancient past (based on Geologic evidence) with the rate of change we see today. Do you think ecosystems will have time to adapt?
· Read The Ocean Is Getting More Acidic
· Watch What is Ocean Acidification (3 min)
· Read What Caused Earth's Biggest Mass Extinction
4. How is ocean acidification linked to global warming? Based on what happened at the end of the Permian, what do you expect will happen if greenhouse gases created by human activity continue to drive global warming / ocean acidification at the cu
ent rate?
· Read the information and view the animation at NASA’s Causes of Climate Change
5. Explain how the five greenhouse gases described on the site affect global warming.
· Read the information at NASA’s Evidence of Climate Change
· Step through all four animations on the NASA Climate Time Machine
6. List and
iefly describe all of the factors cited as evidence of climate change on the NASA site.
· Read the information at NASA’s Effects of Climate Change
7. List and
iefly describe all of the future effects we can expect from the cu
ent rate of global warming.
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So good morning and welcome to physical science XXXXXXXXXXphysical geology. Today I'm going to cover the presentation for chapter 21 in your textbook on global climate change. And before I do, let me point out a couple of things. So there was a lab assignment that required using the topo maps you've all got in your take-home kit this week. But I decided that it was probably a little too involved here as we go into the home stretch. So rather than have you work with that topo map and learn about geographic coordinate systems, projected coordinate systems, and how to locate where things occur on the surface of the Earth, which is pretty important for human activity as well as natural events. Rather than have you do that. I have
oken out what I originally had as the discussion preparation and put that into your lab exercise. So there was a black background research that you had to do. You had to read three articles, you had to watch four videos. I think in total it was about an hour preparation. But rather than have you do all of that for a discussion assignment, I just
oke that out and that is now going to be your lab assignment and that'll be posted here shortly. So what does that leave for your discussion which is not yet available. Just the very last question of the group that was originally there, which is going to ask you to identify the human activities that contribute to climate change and the effects that would have the most demonstrative impact on people, such as temperature extremes and flooding. More extreme and more frequent natural disasters. And then an opinion about what do you think should be done and how we should go about doing it? So the discussion will be basically the capstone, the end of the result of all of that back on research. And then your lab exercise will be that background research. So as you watch those recordings and they're quite short. And as you read those articles that I'm going to ask you to read, I'm going to have a bunch of questions associated with them. So again, your whole lab exercise with preparation and response shouldn't take more than an hour and a half, maybe two hours. If you go off the deep end and start to cite some sources which I'm always impressed by. But as long as you cover what I've asked you to cover, that's that's adequate. So that's what we're gonna do with this week's unit on global climate change. And then we're just one week away from the end of the semester. Next week we're going to cover Earth's evolution. And that means geologic evolution and the evolution of life. That's the domain of historical geology. And there's one last lab exercise that we have to do in terms of co
elation using fossils. So we look at evidence of past life. By examining Paleozoic Mesozoic fossils. So hopefully you'll enjoy that part in the discussion for that very last week is already posted and that won't change. So if you wanted to get a head start on that. So I've had some people ask about any further extra credit opportunities. I think everyone in the course is doing quite well on balance. People I haven't checked out. If you are still, you know, have workout standing, you're struggling in some way. Reach out to me and let me know what I can do to help you. I'm willing to take your work laid up to figure out what that looks like in terms of a penalty, but it's never going to be as extreme as just blown it off. And There's something going on, particularly circumstances beyond your control. I don't need an affidavit and I don't need a lot of personal information. I just need you to reach out, let me know what's going on so I can try to help you in at least be patient with what you've gotta do. Because I want you to do well. And we're in the short strokes of the course, that's a golf term, short strokes. Okay. So those of you who are concerned, you are on the cusp between grades, although most people are in an a or a B category, I would say focus on this extra credit assignment that I'm going to post here at the end of the week. That'll replace a bad quiz grade or missing assignment. And then focus on preparation for your final exam, which will be comprehensive. It will be 100 questions. You will have 120 minutes. I might extend that to 2.5 hours. You shouldn't need more than one minute a question for a multiple choice, true false question, but there'll be worth 1 each, so you can miss tenants don't have an a, right? Some people like, Wow, 100 questions, That's too many. Well, how about ten? He missed one question and you get a minus two questions are going to be minus, probably not, right? So I thought about putting out 50, but went through, I thought a 100 was more reasonable number questions to cover the expanse of the course, but it is comprehensive. It covers the whole course. Course we've been using a lot of those concepts as we've gone along. The later chapters had built on the earlier ones. But you have access to all the resources that came with the platform from Pearson. So I can't I mean, not going to have enough time to look it up from scratch cold. But I don't think that's a daunting task and it is worth big chunk of your grade. I think it's what, ten or 15 percent. Let's take a look. What did I have it set up is Let's see. Oh, and I think I've already mentioned this. I drop your lowest graded discussion. I drop your lowest Canvas lab. I drop your lowest dynamic study module, all those. You get a 100 percent if you just complete those. And I drop your lowest quiz. So you get to have a bad day on each one of those types of activities. But your final exams for 15 percent of your course grade. So if you are on the cusp between grades, that'll make or
eak the course grade that you get. Okay? So before I get in the presentation. Have any questions about anything at all? I think it's clear. Okay, so let me jump over now to my presentation on global climate change. And again, you can expect that revised, a
eviated discussion to pop here shortly, along with the lab assignment, which again will be what I did have out there as your discussion preparation, videos and articles, you read them and CRM. So there will be no separate session that covers the lab exercise. It is basically a research exercise that you will do on your own. Okay, so here we go. Let me get my PowerPoint rock. And so here are our Chapter 21, global climate change. And there's a distinct relationship between weather and climate. As I've had it put to me by some of my prior instructors, climate is what you expect, and weather is what you get. Weather is the state of the atmosphere at any given time or place. And the climate that generates those weather patterns involves the distribution of energy and moisture that occur between all of Earth's spheres. So we have the atmosphere, we had the hydrosphere, that's the water portion, the geosphere, that's the rocky part, the biosphere, That's living life, the crowd spheres, that material, water that is frozen, snow, glaciers ice and frozen ground as well. And they exchanges between these different systems produce climate, which results in weather. So you can see there's a lot of moving parts here. And it is fairly complicated in terms of assessing what's going on and what you can expect in your text has a really good graphic that shows Earth's climate system and how the biosphere and the cryosphere and the hydrosphere, atmosphere, geosphere all interact in terms of the distribution of heat and moisture. It's all about heat and moisture