Global Warming and Climate Change
Lecture Powerpoint
Global climate change is a huge topic, and a difficult one to make students fully grasp the importance of. In this lecture, I start with the oxygen catastrophy and Earth's first ice age as an illustration of how changing the atmosphere can completely alter the climate of the Earth (and the life it supports). A set of data and graphs, taken from NASA's global warming key indicators website is shown to give a sense of the evidence behind our understanding of climate change. Finally, I try to cover all of the major impacts that climate change is having, or is expected to have.. A student notes outline is also available for this lecture.
Essential concepts: Global warming, global climate change, hurricanes, el nino, la nina, carbon dioxide, greenhouse gases, methane, greenhouse effect, weather, climate, atmosphere, stratosphere, troposphere, IPCC, proxies, average temperature, Hurricane Katrina, great ocean conveyor, glaciers, ice caps, sea ice, water cycle, hydrologic cycle, stratoshield.
Test questions: Available for purchase at the environmental science instructor resources subscription page.
