Climate Change

 Today we looked at the power point on climate change. Here are my notes on this power point:

• video explains in scientific terms, using statistics
• back in 2005, when the video was made, "global warming" was more commonly used than "climate change"
• video was produced by National Geographic
• for eons... millennia... multiple hundreds of centuries, the Earth has cycled between ice ages and thaws
• always been part of natural order of things
• as humans become more resourceful, they have more of an impact on nature and climate
• raised 1.2 degrees to 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit in the last hundred years
• compare this to your pattern of glacial patters: (40,000- 100,000 years)
• human activity drives temperatures up so quickly
• burning fossil fuels (oils, gas, other products; coal) produces carbon dioxide
• carbon dioxide intensifies the greenhouse effect which causes heat to be reflected back to Earth
• carbon dioxide and methane have reached their highest levels in 420,000 years
• sources: cars, factories, powerplants, trucks, jets, cement production, etc.
• rising sea levels which could flood coastal areas around the world
• severe drought that could become more prominent in warm areas
• species unable to adapt to the changing conditions would face extinction
• Bill Nye:
• science educator
• writer
• scientist
• mechanical engineer
• inventor
• swing dancer
• Science Guy
• 10 of the last 13 years were the warmest on record
• details of what is in the greenhouse effect:
• fluorinated gases: 3%
• nitrous oxide: 5%
• methane: 10%
• carbon dioxide: 82%
• Bill Nye illustrates greenhouse effects reflecting back on Earth
• the temperature of Earth's oceans has risen more than .3 degrees Fahrenheit  since 1969 causing:
• - a 30% rise of acidity in ocean's chemistry
• -certain species, such as oysters and clams, to be calcified
• -shallow water corals to become increasingly at risk
• -placing the entire "food chain" or "food web" in danger
• since 1994, each year (on average) that Earth has lost from it's glaciers: 400,000,000,000 tons
• climate change: a long-term change in the Earth's overall temperature with massive and permanent ramifications