Climate Evidence: Is the climate warming?

To-Do Date: Apr 19 at 9:30am

The first question we have to ask : is the climate warming? What is the evidence? And is it changing enough to make a difference?

Study Guide: use the following questions to help you focus on the important parts of the material

 

Global Temperatures

Our current global temperature is on average (as of April 20th, 2021 when I checked NASA's website Links to an external site.)

  +0.85 ^o Celsius warmer than in the 1880;'s

To put that in perspective, average global temperatures don't fluctuate that widely. Look at the graph below and you can see that over the course of human history ( last 10,000 years or so), we haven't seen this big a change

 

 

 

This climate model simulation was  made for the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report, showing five-year averaged surface air temperature anomalies in degrees Celsius from 1880 to 2100

 

 

 

 

And this graph over the last 2000 years.

What Do a Few Degrees Matter?

A common question is whether the amount of global warming actually makes a difference. 

 

Evidence for Global Warming 

NASA has put together a great set of resources to examine the types of evidence showing that the earth's temperature has been rising dramatically. 

• • Read NASA's Climate Change, How Do We Know Links to an external site.? and use it to answer the questions in the study guide questions above.  
  • Then take the mini quiz on the next page.