1. UMass Geosciences Lake Elgygytgyn Teachers Workshop
Transferring Big Science into a Classroom Experience with a field
component. June 23-27, 2014 at UMass
2. Communicate the thrill of discovery Demonstrate scientific
principles Show how curiosity driven science is inherently
practical Communicate the sense of Time in geological and
environmental systems. Exhibit how local climate change is also
linked to a global system Why does mud, accumulating over time,
matter; what can it tell us about the future? Motivations
3. Common Core Ideas Teleconnections spatial thinking
Environmental time delays local change may take time Causality at a
distance change in one part of the world impacts another. Cyclic
causality and geologic record geologic systems have cycles and can
be modified by humans. When is change out side of normal change?
What is normal change?
4. Earth Science Literacy Scientific use of proxies to
understand changes in Earth ecosystems and landscapes over recent
geologic time . Use of the geologic past to understand the future.
Use of the recent geologic past as a means of forming a baseline
for measuring future change. Earth history is both gradual and
castastrophic. So is climate change today castastrophic?
5. Earth Works as a Complex System 5
6. 6
7. 7
8. 8 NATIONAL CLIMATE IMPACT ASSESSMENT, 2014
9. Weather day to day, week to week synoptic change Climate
Average conditions over 3 decades or more Climate change and
Weather are not the same!! 9
10. Is learning about climate change like having a
colonoscopy?
11. 11 April 2014, tied with 2010 for highest global
temperatures since 1880. May was warmest on record. EPA New Policy
targeting emissions From Coal Plants, June 2014
12. IPCC Report 2013 Each of the last three decades has been
successively warmer at the Earths surface than any preceding decade
since 1850. In the Northern Hemisphere, 19832012 was likely the
warmest 30-year period of the last 1400 years (medium confidence).
IPCC, 2013
13. ~7B people, & our impact on the planet is ubiquitous 13
IPCC 2013 Damascus 2014IndiaAlaska US/Canada/Europe Climate change
Is not uniform Everywhere!
14. Over the last two decades, the Greenland and Antarctic ice
sheets have been losing mass, glaciers have continued to shrink
almost worldwide, and Arctic sea ice and Northern Hemisphere spring
snow cover have continued to decrease in extent (high confidence)
50% loss of ice volume since 1980 All figures from IPCC,2013;
Summary for Policy Makers
15. US NATIONAL CLIMATE ASSESSMENT Spring, 2014 15
16. 16 NCA Spr 2014
17. Normal window of change Epica Community, 2006 17
18. 44th EARTH DAY 2014 NB: Does not include the additional
amount absorbed by the oceans EPA established in 1970 Clean Water
Act Then the Clean Air Act effective since 1972, updated 77 and 87
18
19. Ice shelf disintegration 7 out of 12 Antarctic Peninsula
ice shelves either gone or in severe decline Sudden and dramatic
loss associated with intense and extensive surface melt Ocean-Ice
Sheet interaction Increased warm water intrusions thin buttressing
ice shelves, increasing ice- sheet discharge and raising sea level
Scientific Advances and Discoveries Examples Mass balance estimates
for Greenland ice sheet Satellite images of Antarctic Peninsula
showing loss of ice shelves Diagram indicating possible paths of
warm deep ocean water beneath ice shelf FigurefromR.A.Bindschadler
CourtesyofW.Rack Figure4.18,IPCCAR4 2010 National Academy Report on
IPY -- Polar Research Board 20
20. 21 West Antarctic ice Sheet Collapse Has Begun Its
unstoppable! Joughin et al 2014 Rignot et al 2014 Loss of
buttressing With the loss of the ice shelves. Papers out 3 wks
ago
21. 22
22. PRECIPITATION Rawlins et al, 2012, JGR 20412070 minus
19712000