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Latin American researchers helping farmers globally combat climate change with big data

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Latin American researchers helping farmers globally combat climate change with big data

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In the world of modern farming, the term 'big data' is among the biggest of buzz words.

It is about taking raw weather and crop information and transforming it into site-specific advice, such as the exact date for a farmer to sow a crop to achieve its best yields.

But big data is more than the future of farming, with many hoping it will help the global effort to battle climate change.

This week, Latin American researchers received a prestigious award from the COP global climate talks in Germany for their efforts using data to help boost farmer yields and battle climate change.

"We've been working with farm organisations and farmers directly to deliver agro-climatic information, with the main purpose of helping farmers make better decisions on their crops based on what's going to be the climate over the next four to five months," researcher Julian Ramirez said.

He and his colleague Daniel Jimenez are based at the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in Cali, Colombia, a centre that receives Australian Government funding to help with its research.

Their big data project with farmers in Colombia and Honduras won this year's Momentum for Change award from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Making decisions based on future rather than past

Dr Ramirez said one of the biggest historical barriers to providing farmers with specific advice had been a lack of regional data.

"When we went to the field we realised farmers [were] making decisions based on the past year," he said.

"So if the past year was good, then they would do the same.

"If the past year was not so good then they would do something different, but then not usually very well informed.

"What we've been able to do is change that behaviour towards decisions that are based on climate information."

Local data forms basis for recommendations

Throughout Latin America, sensors that cost about a dollar each are dotted throughout paddocks.

It means researchers no longer have to rely on information from weather stations that could be hundreds of kilometres away from a farm.

They instead have site-specific data such as soil moisture, rainfall and temperatures that can be transmitted direct from a farm to a researcher.

"Farmers right now look at what the seasonal condition is going to look like, depending on the forecast, and then they are able to make a decision based on that," Dr Ramirez said.

The researchers developed online systems to capture crop and climate information.

They then used modelling, climate forecasting and analysis techniques to make recommendations for individual farmers on the best crops to grow and when to plant them.

Dr Ramirez said he hoped the award would encourage farmers globally to embrace the use of data.

"We are fairly confident it is scalable and is really useful," he said.

"The main thing is many farmers are making decisions in the same way that farmers were doing in Colombia, so I believe they will certainly benefit from this approach."
Brett Worthington travelled to Colombia as the winner of the Crawford Fund's 2017 Food Security Journalism Award, with financial support from DFAT Council on Australia Latin America Relations.

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Researchers helping farmers combat climate change with big data

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In the world of modern farming, the term 'big data' is among the biggest of buzz words. It is about taking raw weather and crop information and transforming it into site-specific advice, such as the exact date for a farmer to sow a crop to achieve its best yields.

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A Nasa oceanographer explains how the US space agency successfully captured 20 years of changing seasons to form a striking new global map. The projection of the Earth and its biosphere is derived from two decades of satellite data from September 1997 to September 2017

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'It's a delicate place': Nasa captures 20 years of Earth's seasonal changes - video

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A Nasa oceanographer explains how the US space agency successfully captured 20 years of changing seasons to form a striking new global map. The projection of the Earth and its biosphere is derived from two decades of satellite data from September 1997 to September 2017

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The Zooniverse is the world's largest and most popular platform for people-powered research.

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public participation in scientifiic research

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SciStarter connects citizen scientists with citizen science projects. Professional and amateur scientists, teachers, students and people of all ages share, find and join exciting citizen science projects and communities.

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USGS Current Conditions for New Jersey_ Tide

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The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT), designed and installed the New Jersey Tide Telemetry System (NJTTS) with assistance from NOS. This system is part of a statewide network of tide gages, weather stations, and stream gages collecting invaluable data in real time.

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Rutgers Coastal Climate Risk and Resilience Graduate Training Program

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Coastal Climate Risk and Resilience Graduate Training Program.

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The Climate Cost Project is a crowdsourced data and documentary project to bring to light the costs of climate change in American communities.

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The City and County of San Francisco wishes to recognize and attribute the information on this site to the employees and partners of the United States Environmental Protection Agency. We join with American cities and organizations to preserve their decades of work on climate change to ensure this information will be readily available.

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Why Phenology? | USA National Phenology Network

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Phenology is a key component of life on earth. Many birds time their nesting so that eggs hatch when insects are available to feed nestlings. Likewise, insect emergence is often synchronized with leaf out in host plants. For people, earlier flowering means earlier allergies.

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The timing of phases of the plant life cycle, known as phenophases, are directly affected by temperature, rainfall, and day length. While these environmental factors change throughout the year, temperature and rainfall are also changing in many regions because of changing climates.

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Pro Con Debate on Cause of Climate Change

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Pro Con Debate on Cause of Climate Change

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Average surface temperatures on earth have risen more than 2°F over the past 100 years. During this time period, atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) have notably increased. This site explores the debate on whether climate change is caused by humans (also known as anthropogenic climate change).

The pro side argues rising levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases are a direct result of human activities such as burning fossil fuels, and that these increases are causing significant and increasingly severe climate changes including global warming, loss of sea ice, sea level rise, stronger storms, and more droughts. They contend that immediate international action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is necessary to prevent dire climate changes.

The con side argues human-generated greenhouse gas emissions are too small to substantially change the earth's climate and that the planet is capable of absorbing those increases. They contend that warming over the 20th century resulted primarily from natural processes such as fluctuations in the sun's heat and ocean currents. They say the theory of human-caused global climate change is based on questionable measurements, faulty climate models, and misleading science. Read more background...

Pro & Con Arguments

Pro 3

The rise in atmospheric CO2 over the last century was clearly caused by human activity, as it occurred at a rate much faster than natural climate changes could produce.

Over the past 650,000 years, atmospheric CO2 levels did not rise above 300 ppm until the mid-20th century. Atmospheric levels of CO2 have risen from about 317 ppm in 1958 to 415 ppm in 2019. According to the Scripps Institution of Oceanology, the "extreme speed at which carbon dioxide concentrations are increasing is unprecedented. An increase of 10 parts per million might have needed 1,000 years or more to come to pass during ancient climate change events." Some climate models predict that by the end of the 21st century an additional 5°F-10°F of warming will occur.
Read More

Pro 4

The specific type of CO2 that is increasing in earth's atmosphere can be directly connected to human activity.

The US Environmental Protection Agency says that "Human activities are responsible for almost all of the increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere over the last 150 years."
Read More

Pro 5

Average temperatures on earth have increased at a rate far faster than can be explained by natural climate changes.
Read More

Pro 6

Natural changes in the sun's activity cannot explain 20th century global warming.
Read More

Pro 7

Global warming caused by human-produced greenhouse gases is causing the Arctic ice cap to melt at an increasing rate.
Read More

Pro 8

Sea levels are rising at an unprecedented rate due to human activities.

A study found that "significant acceleration" of sea-level rise occurred from 1870 to 2004. Between 1961 and 2003, global sea levels rose 8 inches; a 2019 UN report said they could rise by 3 feet in the next 80 years, displacing hundreds of millions of people. A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences concluded that the rate of sea level rise over the past century is unprecedented over the last 6,000 years.
Read More

Pro 10

Ocean temperatures are rising at an unprecedented rate due to anthropogenic global warming.
Read More

Pro 12

Human-caused global warming is changing weather systems and making heat waves and droughts more intense and more frequent.
Read More

Pro 13

Dramatic changes in precipitation, such as heavier storms and less snow, are another sign that humans are causing global climate change.

As human-produced greenhouse gases heat the planet, increased humidity (water vapor in the atmosphere) results. Water vapor is itself a greenhouse gas. In a process known as a positive feedback loop, more warming causes more humidity which causes even more warming. Higher humidity levels also cause changes in precipitation. According to a report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the recorded changes in precipitation over land and oceans "are unlikely to arise purely due to natural climate variability."
Read More

Pro 14

Permafrost is melting at unprecedented rates due to global warming, causing further climate changes.
Read More

Con 1

Many scientists disagree that human activity is primarily responsible for global climate change.

A Purdue University survey found that 47% of climatologists challenge the idea that humans are primarily responsible for climate change and instead believe that climate change is caused by an equal combination of humans and the environment (37%), mostly by the environment (5%), or that there's not enough information to say (5%).
Read More

Con 2

Earth's climate has always warmed and cooled, and the 20th century rise in global temperature is within the bounds of natural temperature fluctuations over the past 3,000 years.

A study published in Nature found that "high temperatures - similar to those observed in the twentieth century before 1990 - occurred around AD 1000 to 1100" in the Northern Hemisphere. A study published in Boreas found that summer temperatures during the Roman Empire and Medieval periods were "consistently higher" than temperatures during the 20th century.
Read More

Con 3

Rising levels of atmospheric CO2 do not necessarily cause global warming.

Earth's climate record shows that warming has preceded, not followed, a rise in CO2. According to a study published in Science, measurements of ice core samples showed that over the last four climactic cycles (past 240,000 years), periods of natural global warming preceded global increases in CO2. The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published a study of the earth's climate 460-445 million years ago which found that an intense period of glaciation, not warming, occurred when CO2 levels were 5 times higher than they are today. According to ecologist and former Director of Greenpeace International Patrick Moore, PhD, "there is some correlation, but little evidence, to support a direct causal relationship between CO2 and global temperature through the millennia."
Read More

Con 4

Human-produced CO2 is re-absorbed by oceans, forests, and other "carbon sinks," negating any climate changes.

A paper published in Asia-Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Sciences found that some climate models overstated how much warming would occur from additional C02 emissions. About 50% of the CO2 released by the burning of fossil fuels and other human activities has already been re-absorbed by the earth's carbon sinks. From 2002-2011, 26% of human-caused CO2 emissions were absorbed specifically by the world's oceans. A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found evidence that forests are increasing their growth rates in response to elevated levels of CO2, which will in turn, lower atmospheric CO2 levels.
Read More

Con 5

CO2 is so saturated in earth's atmosphere that more CO2, manmade or natural, will have little impact on the climate.

According to the Heartland Institute's 2013 Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) report, "it is likely rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations will have little impact on future climate."
Read More

Con 6

Global warming and cooling are primarily caused by fluctuations in the sun's heat (solar forcing), not by human activity.

According to a study published in the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, 50-70% of warming throughout the 20th century could be associated with an increased amount of solar activity. Between 1900 and 2000 solar irradiance increased 0.19%, and correlated with the rise in US surface temperatures over the 20th century.

A study published in Energy & Environment wrote, "variations in solar activity and not the burning of fossil fuels are the direct cause of the observed multiyear variations in climatic responses." In a study by Willie Soon, PhD, Physicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, a strong correlation between solar radiation and temperatures in the Arctic over the past 130 years was identified.
Read More

Con 7

The rate of global warming has slowed over the last decade even though atmospheric CO2 continues to increase.
Read More

Con 8

Sea levels have been steadily rising for thousands of years, and the increase has nothing to do with humans.

According to Professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Judith Curry, PhD, "it is clear that natural variability has dominated sea level rise during the 20th century, with changes in ocean heat content and changes in precipitation patterns."
Read More

Con 9

The acidity levels of the oceans are within past natural levels and the current rise in acidity is a natural fluctuation.

The pH of average ocean surface water is 8.1 and has only decreased 0.1 since the beginning of the industrial revolution (neutral is pH 7, acid is below pH 7). Science published a study of ocean acidity levels over the past 15 million years, finding that the "samples record surface seawater pH values that are within the range observed in the oceans today."
Read More

Con 10

A lot of climate change fears are based on predictions and inadequate or flawed computer climate models.

Climate models have been unable to simulate major known features of past climate such as the ice ages or the very warm climates of the Miocene, Eocene, and Cretaceous periods. If models cannot replicate past climate changes they should not be trusted to predict future climate changes. A Asia-Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Science study using observational data rather than computer climate models concluded that "the models are exaggerating climate sensitivity" and overestimate how fast the earth will warm as CO2 levels increase.
Read More

Con 11

Glaciers have been growing and receding for thousands of years due to natural causes, not human activity.

A study of ice cores published in Nature Geoscience said the current melting of glaciers in Western Antarctica was due to "atmospheric circulation changes" that have "caused rapid warming over the West Antarctic Ice Sheet" and cannot be directly attributed to human caused climate change. According to one of the study authors, "[i]f we could look back at this region of Antarctica in the 1940s and 1830s, we would find that the regional climate would look a lot like it does today, and I think we also would find the glaciers retreating much as they are today." According to Christian Schlüchter, Professor of Geology at the University of Bern, the retreat of glaciers in the Alps began in the mid-19th century, before large amounts of human caused CO2 had entered the atmosphere.
Read More

Con 12

Deep ocean currents, not human activity, are a primary driver of natural climate warming and cooling cycles.

Over the 20th century there have been two Arctic warming periods with a cooling period (1940-1970) in between. According to a study in Geophysical Research Letters, natural shifts in the ocean currents are the major cause of these climate changes, not human-generated greenhouse gases. William Gray, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University, said most of the climate changes over the last century are natural and "due to multi-decadal and multi-century changes in deep global ocean currents."
Read More

Con 13

Increased hurricane activity and other extreme weather events are a result of natural weather patterns, not human-caused climate change.
Read More

Did You Know?

1. A 2019 report from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication found that 73% of Americans think global warming is occurring, marking a ten percentage point increase over Mar. 2015.

2. According to many peer-reviewed studies, over 97% of climate scientists agree that human activity is extremely likely to be the cause of global climate change.

3. A peer-reviewed study found that "up to 70% of the observed post-1850 climate change and warming could be associated to multiple solar cycles."

4. The Unites States makes up about 4% of the world's population but was responsible for nearly one-third of historical global greenhouse gas emissions.

5. A peer-reviewed study of the earth's climate 460-445 million years ago found that an intense period of glaciation, not warming, occurred when CO2 levels were 5 times higher than they are today.

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Is Human Activity Responsible for Climate Change? 13 Pros and Cons

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Average surface temperatures on earth have risen more than 2°F over the past 100 years. During this time period, atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) have notably increased. This site explores the debate on whether climate change is caused by humans (also known as anthropogenic climate change).

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Climate Change Mitigation, Adaptation, & Geoengineering

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Climate Change Mitigation, Adaptation, & Geoengineering

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Climate Change Mitigation, Adaptation, & Geoengineering

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Rutgers Climate Institute | Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

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The 1981-2010 Climate Normals are NCEI's latest three-decade averages of climatological variables, including temperature and precipitation. This product replaces the 1971-2000 Climate Normals product, which remains available as historical data.

Data Access

Search Tool
Search for temperature and precipitation Climate Normals for over 9,800 stations across the United States. Select from tabs and drop-down menus to view monthly, daily, annual, seasonal, or hourly Normals by location, station, and date.

Supplemental Monthly Temperature Normals
The supplemental monthly temperature normals include 4,463 stations across the United States. This special product line provides multiple estimates of monthly temperature normals using different definitions of "normal" so that users can make better-informed decisions in their planning applications. The values are presented in tabular format and available as PDF files.

Interactive Map
Select locations on the interactive map by station, zip code, city, county, or state for temperature and precipitation Normals as well as supplemental Normals, which include snowfall, heating and cooling degree days, frost and freeze dates, and growing degree days.

U.S. Climate Atlas
This tool allows users to view interactive maps of average monthly and annual minimum temperature, maximum temperature, and total precipitation. In addition, monthly maps of minimum temperature, maximum temperature, and precipitation from 1895 through 2015 are available. There are several tools for animating maps and comparing pairs of maps. Downloading of the images is available on the site.

FTP
Download ASCII versions of the full suite of Climate Normals products from ourFTP area. This type of access is for individuals who have experience with FTP and programming languages. We recommend that you review the readme.txt file prior to downloading the data as it describes all file information and locations.

HTTP
Download ASCII versions of the full suite of Climate Normals products from ourHTTP area rather than the FTP area as described above.

FAQs

What are Climate Normals?

In the strictest sense, a "normal" of a particular variable (e.g., temperature) is defined as the 30-year average. For example, the minimum temperature normal in January for a station in Chicago, Illinois, would be computed by taking the average of the 30 January values of monthly averaged minimum temperatures from 1981 to 2010. Each of the 30 monthly values was in turn derived from averaging the daily observations of minimum temperature for the station. In practice, however, much more goes into NCEI's Climate Normals product than simple 30-year averages. Procedures are put in place to deal with missing and suspect data values. In addition, Climate Normals include quantities other than averages such as degree days, probabilities, standard deviations, etc. Climate Normals are a large suite of data products that provide users with many tools to understand typical climate conditions for thousands of locations across the United States.

Why does NOAA produce Climate Normals?

NOAA's computation of Climate Normals is in accordance with the recommendation of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), of which the United States is a member. While the WMO mandates each member nation to compute 30-year averages of meteorological quantities at least every 30 years (1931-1960, 1961-1990, 1991-2020, etc.), the WMO recommends a decadal update, in part to incorporate newer weather stations. Further, NOAA's NCEI has a responsibility to fulfill the mandate of Congress "... to establish and record the climatic conditions of the United States." This responsibility stems from a provision of the Organic Act of October 1, 1890, which established the Weather Bureau as a civilian agency (15 U.S.C. 311).

What are Climate Normals used for?

Meteorologists and climatologists regularly use Climate Normals for placing recent climate conditions into a historical context. NOAA's Climate Normals are commonly seen on local weather news segments for comparisons with the day's weather conditions. In addition to weather and climate comparisons, Climate Normals are utilized in seemingly countless applications across a variety of sectors. These include regulation of power companies, energy load forecasting, crop selection and planting times, construction planning, building design, and many others.

Were the 1981-2010 Climate Normals computed in the same way as previous versions?

No. Several changes and additions have been incorporated into the 1981-2010 Climate Normals. For a detailed overview of these changes and additions, please consult Arguez et al. (2012) for daily and monthly normals and Applequist et al. (2012) for hourly normals.

What qualifies or disqualifies a station to be included in Climate Normals products?

Climate Normals are computed for as many stations operated by the National Weather Service (NWS) as reasonably possible. Some stations do not have sufficient data over the 1981-2010 period to be included in the Climate Normals, and this is the primary reason a station may not be included. Climate Normals are computed for stations that are part of the NWS Cooperative Observer Program (COOP) Network. Some additional stations are included that have a Weather Bureau-Army-Navy (WBAN) station identification number including the U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN). Climate Normals are only computed for stations in the United States (including Alaska and Hawaii) as well as U.S. territories, commonwealths, compact of free association nations, and one Canadian USCRN station.

How many stations are included in the Climate Normals?

The 1981-2010 Climate Normals includes normals for over 9,800 stations. Temperature-related normals are reported for 7,500 stations and precipitation normals are provided for 9,300 stations, including 6,400 that also have snowfall normals and 5,300 that have normals of snow depth. Hourly Climate Normals are available for 262 stations.

What do Climate Normals tell us about global warming or climate change?

Climate Normals were not designed to be metrics of climate change. In fact, when the widespread practice of computing Climate Normals commenced in the 1930s, the generally accepted notion of the climate was that underlying long-term averages of climate time series were constant. Changes from one installment of Climate Normals to the next do, nonetheless, provide some evidence of climate change impacts. However, care must be taken when interpreting changes between one Climate Normals period and the other. Differences between the reported 1971-2000 Climate Normals and the 1981-2010 Climate Normals may be due to station moves, changes in methodology, changes in instrumentation, etc., that are not reflective of real changes in the underlying climate signal. Rather than inferring Climate Change impacts from Climate Normals, we recommend users instead look at trends in U.S. Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) time series.

What portion of the difference from the new Climate Normals and the previous Climate Normals was due to climate change?

Compared to the previous Climate Normals, the new Climate Normals includes the decade of the 2000s and loses the decade of the 1970s. As the 2000s were warmer than the 1970s, this has had a warming influence on the Climate Normals. Comparing these decades using our best dataset for climate change analysis, the USHCN, we find that the decade of the 2000s was about 1.5°F warmer than the 1970s. For maximum, minimum, and mean temperature the difference, respectively, was 1.37°F, 1.55°F, and 1.46°F. As the Climate Normals are an average of three decades, this warmed the new Climate Normals by approximately 0.5°F. The difference between these values and the actual difference between the reported 1971-2000 Normals and the new Normals are caused by station moves, changes in observing practices or instruments, etc.

What are heating and cooling degree days? What are growing degree days?

Heating and cooling degree days are metrics of energy demand associated with the variation of mean temperature across space and time. Growing degree days are metrics of agricultural output, also as a function of mean temperature. The computation of degree days involves certain threshold temperatures, e.g., 65°F for heating and cooling degree days. These thresholds are referred to as base temperatures.

How can I obtain heating and cooling degree day Normals set to different base temperatures? And for growing degree units?

While NCEI utilizes 65°F as the base temperature for the standard calculation of heating and cooling degree days, the Climate Normals products include alternative computations of heating and cooling degree days for various base temperatures. In addition, growing degree days are computed for various crop-specific base temperatures. These Climate Normals products can be obtained using any of the access mechanisms described above.

How can I obtain Climate Normals for other weather elements such as dew point temperature, sea level pressure, and wind?

The vast majority of weather stations utilized in the 1981-2010 Climate Normals only routinely report air temperature and precipitation. A smaller set of stations have fairly complete records of additional variables such as dew point temperature, sea level pressure, and wind speed and direction. For 262 first order stations, we provide hourly normals of temperature, dew point temperature, heat index, wind chill, heating and cooling degree hours, sea level pressure, and wind.

How does the transition to ASOS affect the computation of Climate Normals?

Automated Surface Observing System (ASOS) stations were implemented in the mid-1990s. As a result, there are inhomogeneities in the 1981-2010 underlying data records due to changes in observing practices. These inhomogeneities are accounted for to the extent possible by quality control and the standardization of monthly temperature values. See Menne et al. (2009) and Menne and Williams (2009) for more information.

How do the 1981-2010 Climate Normals compare to Alternative Normals and Dynamic Normals?

In response to observed Climate Change, NOAA's NCEI has been investigating a suite of products that attempt to provide a better estimate of "normal" than the traditional 30-year average Climate Normals of temperature. This project was previously known as Alternative Normals. Currently, NCEI plans to include some of the alternatives as part of the 1981-2010 Climate Normals suite of products, in response to feedback received at an April 2012 workshop on this topic. Dynamic Normals refers to a legacy tool available on NCEI's website that allowed users to create their own Climate Normals for a particular station by selecting customized start and end years for the averages. This tool has not been updated since 2001 and there are no plans to update this tool in the foreseeable future.

Do other agencies and individuals compute their own Climate Normals?

Yes. Many agencies, including NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, develop their own averages and change base periods for specific applications and/or internal use. Similarly, numerous individuals calculate their own Climate Normals for a variety of reasons. In contrast with many non-official computations of climatological means from a myriad of sources, NCEI is the official source for calculations of U.S. Climate Normals. This official status is in keeping with NCEI's monitoring and reporting responsibilities.

Where can I find more information about the 1981-2010 Climate Normals and how they were computed?

A number of documents are available that provide information about the new Climate Normals and explain in technical terms how they were computed. Please see the References section below.

References

For a broad overview of NOAA's 1981-2010 Climate Normals, see:

For a detailed description of precipitation, snowfall, and snow depth Normals, see:
Durre, I., M. F. Squires, R. S. Vose, A. Arguez, S. Applequist, and X. Yin, 2012: Computational Procedures for the 1981-2010 Normals: Precipitation, Snowfall, and Snow Depth. NCDC Report, 10 pp. PDF

Durre, I., and M. F. Squires, 2015: White Christmas? An Application of NOAA's 1981-2010 Daily Normals. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 96, 1853-1858, dx.doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-15-00038.1.

For a detailed description of temperature Normals, see:
Arguez, A., S. Applequist, R. S. Vose, I. Durre, M. F. Squires, and X. Yin, 2012: NOAA's 1981-2010 Climate Normals: Methodology of Temperature-related Normals. NCDC Report, 7 pp. PDF

For a detailed description of Hourly Normals, see:
Applequist, S., A. Arguez, I. Durre, M. F. Squires, R. S. Vose, and X. Yin, 2012: 1981-2010 U.S. Hourly Normals. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 93, 1637-1640 52, 2377-2395, doi:10.1175/JAMC-D-13-051.1.

For more information about the "Constrained Harmonic Approach" used to calculate daily temperature Normals, see:

For information about the frost-freeze and growing degree day Normals, see:
Arguez A., 2012: NOAA's 1981-2010 Climate Normals: Supplemental Normals. NCDC Report, 4 pp. PDF

The vast majority of the data used to calculate NOAA's 1981-2010 Climate Normals come from the Global Historical Climatology Network-Daily database. For more information on this database, see:

The 1981-2010 temperature Normals are based on monthly temperature values that have undergone robust quality control and homogenization to address changes in observing practices. For more information on these techniques, see:

Cite dataset when used as a source. See the dataset's DOI landing page for citation details at doi:10.7289/V5PN93JP.

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The 1981-2010 Climate Normals are NCEI's latest three-decade averages of climatological variables, including temperature and precipitation. This product replaces the 1971-2000 Climate Normals product, which remains available as historical data. Search Tool Search for temperature and precipitation Climate Normals for over 9,800 stations across the United States.

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Climate Change Ripens Prospects For German Winemakers

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Climate Change Ripens Prospects For German Winemakers

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Johannes Selbach's family has made wine in Germany's Mosel Valley for four centuries, and he spares little of the history on a tour of his vineyards. He has had three soil profiles extracted from the ground and mounted on the wall of his winery.

"The places where the sun melts the snow first have been known for thousands of years," he says. "The good spots are known for generations."

The Romans who planted this valley used single poles to train the vines, Selbach says, and vines still grow on posts on the steep sides of the winding Mosel River, with icons of the Stations of the Cross dotting the footpaths. Selbach takes care not to dirty his suit, which he wore to Sunday Mass, as he walks straight uphill between the vines. In early September, the speckled green Riesling grapes are tart and a little sweet - on the knife's edge of ripeness. And they are a month early. Selbach looks up at a large white cross on a hilltop. Grapes grown up there were once so unripe that they would need added sugar to make a balanced bottle.

"Twenty-five or 30 years ago, the top of hill was not regarded with affection," he says. "Today it's what is prized. Side valleys were not highly regarded, but now we love them."

Across Europe, hotter temperatures are reshaping the wine industry. In southern Spain and Italy, growers worry the heat will dry out their vines. A fledgling wine business is taking root in the United Kingdom. In Germany, warming has been a blessing, and it comes as Riesling enjoys a renaissance, especially among American drinkers.

One of Riesling's ambassadors is Ernst Loosen. When I meet him, his black puppy, Nyx, eagerly nuzzles his knee. He admits he's had little time to spend with her between trips promoting wine overseas. And he is emphatic that life today is easier with warmer temperatures.

"I don't want to have the time back of my grandfather and my father," he says. "They had only three vintages in a decade getting ripe and had to deal with seven vintages in 10 years which were awful, undrinkable to very mediocre. In the old days it worked, the prices have been higher, and people waited longer. We wouldn't survive with this kind of weather anymore."

A century ago, despite its challenges, Riesling was prized as a regional wine, a white equivalent to a red from Bordeaux, says American wine importer Stephen Bitterolf. Then, winemakers grew grapes cheaply for export to the U.S. and the UK, and compensated for the high acidity of unripe Riesling grapes by adding sugar to the crushed fruit. Some winemakers added so much, and sold the bottles at such low prices, that Riesling developed a reputation as cheap, sweet plonk.

Bitterolf says the trend has been reversed in the last decade, as producers focus on terroir and add little or no extra sugar. The warmer temperatures make that task easier. And Americans have grown to appreciate it: The German Wine Institute, an industry agency, says Americans imported about 1.5 million cases of Riesling in 2016, part of a steady increase over the last 15 years. To celebrate the improving wine, six years ago Bitterolf launched Rieslingfeier, an annual festival for the wine held in New York City.

"Finally, after decades and decades, people are beginning to order Rieslings, understand Rieslings, and at least have a semi-positive reaction," he says. Before, he adds, "'No I don't like Rieslings, they're sweet,' was always the line."

Another bonus for American drinkers? Bitterolf says high-end German Rieslings have remained affordable compared with skyrocketing prices for Burgundy, Bordeaux and Champagne.

Although the warmer days have been helpful for Riesling, the added natural sweetness in the grapes can add complications. Selbach says he makes "filigree" wine that is sleek and subtle.

"Everyone can make baseball bat wine," he says. "Preserving acidity is the challenge, not making big fat wines."

Selbach says changing temperatures may mean the end of his ice wine, made by pressing grapes when they are frozen solid. It is a gamble, because winemakers leave grapes on the vine well past the usual harvest in fall. Shorter winters mean the grapes may freeze too late, or not at all.

"After losing my shirt three years in a row, ice wine is a goner," he says.

As temperatures shift, so do the grape choices. Viticulturalist Ulrich Fischer at the Neustadt Wine Campus says this year, a third of all German vines are planted with red grapes - once rare in Germany. "We could not achieve a pleasurable and nice decent red wine without climate change," he says.

The volatile climate can be stressful. In 2010 Daniel Assmuth opened an organic winery in Bad Duerkheim, one of a class of new winemakers to try their hand in Germany's bubbling industry. Heavy rains and warm nights led to mold that devastated his crop last year. So he switched to conventional growing.

"I'm so small a winery, I can't do this anymore," he says. "It's too expensive and there's no wine in my cellar from 2016."

Ernst Loosen is sanguine about the future of Riesling. He has a joint venture with Chateau St. Michelle winery in Washington State, and he says the land there gets nearly three times as much sunshine as the Mosel Valley - and the Riesling survives. In Washington State, he says, he plants the grapes higher, adds shading and runs overhead sprinklers over the vines to cool down the environment. The easiest technique of all, he says, is to plant more fruit on the same patch of land.

"You immediately get the ripeness down," he says. "There are so many viticultural tools to fight this global warming thing."

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Climate Change Ripens Prospects For German Winemakers

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Johannes Selbach's family has made wine in Germany's Mosel Valley for four centuries, and he spares little of the history on a tour of his vineyards. He has had three soil profiles extracted from the ground and mounted on the wall of his winery.

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Climate Change Publications | Natural Resources Canada

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Canada in a Changing Climate: Sector Perspectives on Impacts and Adaptation is an update to the 2008 report, From Impacts to Adaptation: Canada in a Changing Climate. The report assesses literature published since 2007 on climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability in Canada.

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Climate Change

The heat is on ... and temperatures are rising to unprecedented levels all across the planet. In this BrainPOP movie, Tim and Moby explain how naturally occurring greenhouse gases in our atmosphere once helped transform Earth into a temperate and pleasant place. But as human civilization evolved our reliance on industry, manufacturing and large-scale agriculture has thrown this greenhouse effect out of whack. We're burning more fossil fuels and generating more heat-trapping gasses, like carbon dioxide and methane, than our planet can process. That's causing global warming on a scale we've never seen before. But the trouble isn't just about temperatures. Climate change is leading to rising sea levels, water shortages, and more erratic, extreme weather conditions. We've already felt the effects of these shifts, but if we're not careful things will only get worse and more people will fall victim to the ripple effects of a hotter Earth. So watch this movie to learn more about what you can do to help ... before things get too hot to handle.

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Climate Change Lesson Plans and Lesson Ideas | BrainPOP Educators

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The heat is on ... and temperatures are rising to unprecedented levels all across the planet. In this BrainPOP movie, Tim and Moby explain how naturally occurring greenhouse gases in our atmosphere once helped transform Earth into a temperate and pleasant place.

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The Scientific Consensus

Historian of science, Naomi Oreskes of UC San Diego, states: "Scientific knowledge is the intellectual and social consensus of affiliated experts based on the weight of available empirical evidence, and evaluated according to accepted methodologies. If we feel that a policy question deserves to be informed by scientific knowledge, then we have no choice but to ask, what is the consensus of experts on this matter."

Climate change has been extensively researched and the overwhelming majority of climate scientists agree that the observed modern day global warming is unprecedented and is very likely caused by humans. The 2007 IPCC reports detail this widespread consensus. Although there is little serious debate between climate experts, many in the general public still think that these scientists are unsure about climate change and the role that humans have played in modern day global warming (Doran & Zimmerman, 2009). There are some reasons why the general public may be confused and they are not accidental.

So whom do you trust? The statement below from Prof. Stephen Schneider answers the question quite well and can be considered a litmus test for the veracity of climate change claims:

As a rule of thumb, those working for an organization which conducts primary research on climate science (e.g. CSIRO or Universities), and publishes this work in peer-reviewed scientific journals (the industry gold standard), should have their theories taken seriously. This is because they are following the scientific process the same process that underpins the massive literature reviews of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment reports, and indeed the same process that has taken man to the moon, decoded the genome, and given you digital watches, laptop computers and automobiles. In any research field there will, of course, be diverse opinions about causes and effects the positing, testing and overturning of theory and hypotheses are at the very core of science. Provided such arguments are bound by empirical or experimental evidence, and have survived rigorous pre-publication scrutiny and review, then they should be considered a valid viewpoint. (Brook, 2008)
Prof. Schneider is the Melvin and Joan Lane Professor for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies, Professor of Biological Sciences, and Professor by Courtesy of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University. He is Co-Director of the Center for Environmental Science and Policy in the Freeman-Spogli Institute and a Senior Fellow in the Woods Institute for the Environment. He received his Ph.D in Mechanical Engineering and Plasma Physics from Columbia University, USA, in 1971.
Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change:

48% of Americans think most climate scientists do not agree that the Earth has been warming in recent years, and 53% think climate scientists do not agree that human activities are a major cause of that warming (Doran and Zimmerman, 2009). A poll performed by Peter Doran and Maggie Kendall Zimmerman at Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago of 3,146 Earth scientists showed 96.2% of climatologists who are active in climate research agree that mean global temperatures have risen compared to pre-1800s levels, and 97.4% agree that human activity is a significant factor in changing mean global temperatures. Among all respondents, 90% agreed that temperatures have risen compared to pre-1800 levels, and 80% agreed that humans significantly influence the global temperature. Petroleum geologists were among the biggest doubters, with only 47 percent believing in human involvement.

Doran and Zimmerman conclude:

Debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes. The challenge, rather, appears to be how to effectively communicate this fact to policy makers and to a public that continues to mistakenly perceive debate among scientists.

Anderegg et al. (2010) in their PNAS paper, Expert credibility in climate change, used an extensive dataset of 1,372 climate researchers and their publication and citation data to show that:

1. 9798% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

2. The relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers.

Furthermore, the authors note:

A vocal minority of researchers and other critics contest the conclusions of the mainstream scientific assessment, frequently citing large numbers of scientists whom they believe support their claimsThis group, often termed climate change skeptics, contrarians, or deniers, has received large amounts of media attention and wields significant influence in the societal debate about climate change impacts and policy."
Despite media tendencies to present both sides in ACC debates [anthropogenic climate change], which can contribute to continued public misunderstanding regarding ACC, not all climate researchers are equal in scientific credibility and expertise in the climate system. This extensive analysis of the mainstream versus skeptical/contrarian researchers suggests a strong role for considering expert credibility in the relative weight of and attention to these groups of researchers in future discussions in media, policy, and public forums regarding anthropogenic climate change.

In another smaller survey via email, Brown, Pielke, and Anaan (2007) contacted 1807 climate scientists and received responses from 140 of those scientists. In the poll scientists were asked to discuss their opinion about the role of human-caused radiative forcing of CO ₂ in climate change and how climate science was represented in the IPCC's WG1 Report. The response is summarized below:

No scientists were willing to admit to the statement that "global warming is a fabrication and that human activity is not having any significant effect on climate" - [0%].

82% expressed the opinion that the IPCC WG1 Report was accurate [65%] or actually underestimates the consequences of anthropogenic CO₂-induced AGW and the associated risks [15%].

The most often chosen response in the survey was "The scientific basis for human impacts on climate is well represented by the IPCC WG1 report. The lead scientists know what they are doing. We are warming the planet, with CO2 as the main culprit. At least some of the forecast consequences of this change are based on robust evidence."

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC:

The IPCC is a scientific intergovernmental body set up by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Its constituency is made of :

The governments: the IPCC is open to all member countries of WMO and UNEP. Governments participate in plenary sessions of the IPCC where main decisions about the IPCC work program are taken and reports are accepted, adopted and approved. They also participate in the review of IPCC reports.

The scientists: hundreds of scientists all over the world contribute to the work of the IPCC as authors, contributors and reviewers.

Its role is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the latest scientific, technical and socio-economic literature produced worldwide relevant to the understanding of the risk of human-induced climate change, its observed and projected impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation.

The IPCC 4th Assessment Report (2007) is the result of 2500+ scientific expert reviewers, 800+ contributing authors, and 450+ lead authors from 130+ countries.

Below are some excerpts from the IPCC WGI 4th Assessment Report (IPCC, 2007) which leaves little doubt that the present climate is experiencing an unprecedented global warming rate which is primarily due to human (anthropogenic) activities:

Global atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide have increased markedly as a result of human activities since 1750 and now far exceed pre-industrial values determined from ice cores spanning many thousands of years. The global increases in carbon dioxide concentration are due primarily to fossil fuel use and land-use change, while those of methane and nitrous oxide are primarily due to agriculture.

The understanding of anthropogenic warming and cooling influences on climate has improved since the Third Assessment Report (TAR), leading to very high confidence that the globally averaged net effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming, with a radiative forcing of +1.6 [+0.6 to +2.4] W m².

Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level.

At continental, regional, and ocean basin scales, numerous long-term changes in climate have been observed. These include changes in Arctic temperatures and ice, widespread changes in precipitation amounts, ocean salinity, wind patterns and aspects of extreme weather including droughts, heavy precipitation, heat waves and the intensity of tropical cyclones

Paleoclimate information supports the interpretation that the warmth of the last half century is unusual in at least the previous 1300 years. The last time the polar regions were significantly warmer than present for an extended period (about 125,000 years ago), reductions in polar ice volume led to 4 to 6 metres of sea level rise.

Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations. This is an advance since the TARs conclusion that most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations. Discernible human influences now extend to other aspects of climate, including ocean warming, continental-average temperatures, temperature extremes and wind patterns.

Analysis of climate models together with constraints from observations enables an assessed likely range to be given for climate sensitivity for the first time and provides increased confidence in the understanding of the climate system response to radiative forcing.

For the next two decades a warming of about 0.2C per decade is projected for a range of SRES emission scenarios. Even if the concentrations of all greenhouse gases and aerosols had been kept constant at year 2000 levels, a further warming of about 0.1C per decade would be expected.

Continued greenhouse gas emissions at or above current rates would cause further warming and induce many changes in the global climate system during the 21st century that would very likely be larger than those observed during the 20th century.

There is now higher confidence in projected patterns of warming and other regional-scale features, including changes in wind patterns, precipitation, and some aspects of extremes and of ice.

Anthropogenic warming and sea level rise would continue for centuries due to the time scales associated with climate processes and feedbacks, even if greenhouse gas concentrations were to be stabilized.

For more information please see: IPCC Website

Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges and Decisions:

Since the IPCC 2007 reports, new research has been reviewed by the International Alliance of Research Universities (IARU). IARU organized an international scientific congress on climate change, Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges and Decisions, which was held in Copenhagen from 10-12 March 2009. Participation in the Congress was open to all. Most of the approximately 2500 people attending the Congress were researchers, many of whom have also been contributors to the IPCC reports. Participants came from nearly 80 different countries and contributed with more than 1400 scientific presentations. The Synthesis Report (Richardson, et al., 2009) contains six key messages:

1. Climatic Trends
Recent observations show that greenhouse gas emissions and many aspects of the climate are changing near the upper boundary of the IPCC range of projections. Many key climate indicators are already moving beyond the patterns of natural variability within which contemporary society and economy have developed and thrived. These indicators include global mean surface temperature, sea-level rise, global ocean temperature, Arctic sea ice extent, ocean acidification, and extreme climatic events. With unabated emissions, many trends in climate will likely accelerate, leading to an increasing risk of abrupt or irreversible climatic shifts.

2. Social and Environmental Disruption
The research community provides much information to support discussions on dangerous climate change. Recent observations show that societies and ecosystems are highly vulnerable to even modest levels of climate change, with poor nations and communities, ecosystem services and biodiversity particularly at risk. Temperature rises above 2oC will be difficult for contemporary societies to cope with, and are likely to cause major societal and environmental disruptions through the rest of the century and beyond.

3. Long-term Strategy : Global Targets and Timetables
Rapid, sustained, and effective mitigation based on coordinated global and regional action is required to avoid dangerous climate change regardless of how it is defined. Weaker targets for 2020 increase the risk of serious impacts, including the crossing of tipping points, and make the task of meeting 2050 targets more difficult and costly. Setting a credible long-term price for carbon and the adoption of policies that promote energy efficiency and low-carbon technologies are central to effective mitigation.

4. Equity Dimensions
Climate change is having, and will have, strongly differential effects on people within and between countries and regions, on this generation and future generations, and on human societies and the natural world. An effective, well-funded adaptation safety net is required for those people least capable of coping with climate change impacts, and equitable mitigation strategies are needed to protect the poor and most vulnerable. Tackling climate change should be seen as integral to the broader goals of enhancing socioeconomic development and equity throughout the world.

5. Inaction is Inexcusable
Society already has many tools and approaches economic, technological, behavioral, and managerial to deal effectively with the climate change challenge. If these tools are not vigorously and widely implemented, adaptation to the unavoidable climate change and the societal transformation required to decarbonize economies will not be achieved. A wide range of benefits will flow from a concerted effort to achieve effective and rapid adaptation and mitigation. These include job growth in the sustainable energy sector; reductions in the health, social, economic and environmental costs of climate change; and the repair of ecosystems and revitalization of ecosystem services.

6. Meeting the Challenge
If the societal transformation required to meet the climate change challenge is to be achieved, then a number of significant constraints must be overcome and critical opportunities seized. These include reducing inertia in social and economic systems; building on a growing public desire for governments to act on climate change; reducing activities that increase greenhouse gas emissions and reduce resilience (e.g. subsidies); and enabling the shifts from ineffective governance and weak institutions to innovative leadership in government, the private sector and civil society. Linking climate change with broader sustainable consumption and production concerns, human rights issues and democratic values is crucial for shifting societies towards more sustainable development pathways.

No Scientific Body of National or International Standing Holds a Dissenting Opinion:

A strong, credible body of scientific evidence shows that climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for a broad range of human and natural systems. Some scientific conclusions or theories have been so thoroughly examined and tested, and supported by so many independent observations and results, that their likelihood of subsequently being found to be wrong is vanishingly small. Such conclusions and theories are then regarded as settled facts. This is the case for the conclusions that the Earth system is warming and that much of this warming is very likely due to human activities. (U.S. National Academy of Sciences, 2010)

"Decades of scientific research have shown that climate can change from both natural and anthropogenic causes. The Geological Society of America (GSA) concurs with assessments by the National Academies of Science (2005), the National Research Council (2006), and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) that global climate has warmed and that human activities (mainly greenhouse gas emissions) account for most of the warming since the middle 1900s. If current trends continue, the projected increase in global temperature by the end of the twentyfirst century will result in large impacts on humans and other species. Addressing the challenges posed by climate change will require a combination of adaptation to the changes that are likely to occur and global reductions of CO2 emissions from anthropogenic sources." (The Geological Society of America [GSA], 2010)

"The Earth's climate is now clearly out of balance and is warming. Many components of the climate system-including the temperatures of the atmosphere, land and ocean, the extent of sea ice and mountain glaciers, the sea level, the distribution of precipitation, and the length of seasons-are now changing at rates and in patterns that are not natural and are best explained by the increased atmospheric abundances of greenhouse gases and aerosols generated by human activity during the 20th century." (American Geophysical Union, 2007)

"Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver." (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2009)

"Observations show that warming of the climate is unequivocal. The global warming observed over the past 50 years is due primarily to human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases. These emissions come mainly from the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and gas), with important contributions from the clearing of forests, agricultural practices, and other activities." (U.S. Global Change Research Program, 2009)

"Human activity is most likely responsible for climate warming. Most of the climatic warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been caused by increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere." (European Academy of Sciences and Arts, 2007)

"Scientific evidence is clear: global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now, and it is a growing threat to society....The pace of change and the evidence of harm have increased markedly over the last five years. The time to control greenhouse gas emissions is now." (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2006)

More official statements can be viewed at: Wiki: Scientific Opinion on Climate Change.

These two quotes also show the consensus:

"I think we understand the mechanisms of CO₂ and climate better than we do of what causes lung cancer...In fact, it is fair to say that global warming may be the most carefully and fully studied scientific topic in human history."
--- Ralph Cicerone, President of the National Academy of Sciences
--- Donald Kennedy, editor of "Consensus as strong as the one that has developed around global warming is rare in science."
Science

Most-Cited Authors on Climate Science:

Jim Prall, from the University of Toronto, has compiled a list of homepages and some citation stats for all the authors from Working Group 1 of the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), as well as a longer list including other active climate science researchers. Please see his Most-Cited Authors on Climate Science table for an excellent representation of those that agree there is AGW and those that are skeptical.

Climate Consensus: A Cautionary Tale, Part 1/2
Prof. Barry Bickmore examines the following questions. 1) What does it mean to have a scientific consensus? 2) Is there a strong scientific consensus about whether humans are significantly affecting the climate? 3) How do people convince themselves to go against the consensus?

What About Scientists and Papers That Challenge the Consensus?

Some claim that there are 31,000 U.S. scientists and over 850 peer-reviewed papers that challenge the consensus that humans are causing climate change. Skeptical Science gave these claims the greatest benefit of the doubt and came up with this interesting factoid:

1. 31,000 scientists represents 0.1% of US scientists that hold a BS degree or higher

2. 850 papers represents 0.1% of the peer-reviewed papers on the subject of climate change

It is quite foolish to hang one's hat on those statistics!

Next: Determining the Climate Record

Professor - Physical Sciences
T-202 Smithtown Sciences Bldg.
S.C.C.C.
533 College Rd.
Selden, NY 11784
(631) 451-4104
mandias@sunysuffolk.edu
http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/
Last updated: 02/13/11

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Global Warming: Man or Myth - The Scientific Consensus

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The Scientific Consensus Historian of science, Naomi Oreskes of UC San Diego, states: "Scientific knowledge is the intellectual and social consensus of affiliated experts based on the weight of available empirical evidence, and evaluated according to accepted methodologies.

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Global warming is happening now, and scientists are confident that greenhouse gases are responsible. To understand what this means for humanity, it is necessary to understand what global warming is, how scientists know it's happening, and how they predict future climate.

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A Summary of Climate Change Impacts and Preparedness Opportunitiesfor the Agricultural Sector in New Jersey

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A Summary of Climate Change Impacts and Preparedness Opportunitiesfor the Agricultural Sector in New Jersey

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Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network

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Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network

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Climate and Energy Educational Resources

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Accurate education about climate and energy topics has never been more important, and it can be challenging to locate reliable, vetted educational materials to use in your classroom. CLEAN is here to help you find the resources that you need, without wondering about their scientific credibility or educational value.

With over 700 items in the CLEAN collection, there are multiple ways to find the resources you need:

Search CLEAN by keywords, grade level, and/or resource type There are many ways to search the entire CLEAN collection. Type in a keyword, or click on the filter options, and off you go! Browse CLEAN by NGSS Resources are aligned by NGSS grade level bands, content, and all four NGSS categories (DCI, PE, SEP, CCC). Climate and energy education support Use the 'Teaching Climate' and the 'Teaching Energy' guides for instructional support in teaching about climate and energy topics. These pages include pedagogic strategies, ideas for bringing these topics to life in your classroom, and top resources. Design your own climate and energy units Create your own custom unit lessons using the NGSS-aligned planning template and tools, plus use the three classroom-ready unit examples.

Count on CLEAN:

Every item in the CLEAN collection is rigorously peer-reviewed by teams of educators and scientists. All resources are free and available online.

The CLEAN project is funded by the National Science Foundation, NOAA, and the Department of Energy.

CLEAN has been recognized by the Webby Awards and the National Center for Science Education.

The collection is widely used by the education community, and now receives over 16,000 monthly website visits.

Materials are designed for the for K-12 teacher, college educator, informal educators, and anyone looking for quality educational resources. The collection includes lesson plans, projects, videos, demos, and more.

The entire collection is NGSS-integrated and ready to support three-dimensional learning.

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teach the earth:incorporating societal issues:climate change

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Collection of Climate and Energy Educational Resources

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Accurate education about climate and energy topics has never been more important, and it can be challenging to locate reliable, vetted educational materials to use in your classroom. CLEAN is here to help you find the resources that you need, without wondering about their scientific credibility or educational value.

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This is a multi-media teaching tool to learn about climate change. The tool is comprised of stills, video clips, graphic representations, and explanatory text about climate science. Acclaimed photographer James Balog and his Extreme Ice team put this teaching tool together.

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Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet

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The following organizations provide reviewed listings of the best available student and educators resources related to global climate change, including NASA products.

The CLEAN project, a part of the National Science Digital Library, provides a reviewed collection of resources to aid students' understanding of the core ideas in climate and energy science, coupled with the tools to enable an online community to share and discuss teaching about climate and energy science.

› http://www.cleanet.org/

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For Educators | NASA Global Climate Change

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The following organizations provide reviewed listings of the best available student and educators resources related to global climate change, including NASA products. The CLEAN project, a part of the National Science Digital Library, provides a reviewed collection of resources to aid students' understanding of the core ideas in climate and energy science, coupled with the tools to enable an online community to share and discuss teaching about climate and energy science.

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Reliable sources for Climate Change research

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Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet

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The rate of change since the mid-20th century is unprecedented over millennia.

Earth's climate has changed throughout history. Just in the last 800,000 years, there have been eight cycles of ice ages and warmer periods, with the end of the last ice age about 11,700 years ago marking the beginning of the modern climate era - and of human civilization. Most of these climate changes are attributed to very small variations in Earth's orbit that change the amount of solar energy our planet receives.

This graph, based on the comparison of atmospheric samples contained in ice cores and more recent direct measurements, provides evidence that atmospheric CO2 has increased since the Industrial Revolution. (Credit: Luthi, D., et al.. 2008; Etheridge, D.M., et al. 2010; Vostok ice core data/J.R. Petit et al.; NOAA Mauna Loa CO2 record.) Find out more about ice cores (external site).

The current warming trend is different because it is clearly the result of human activities since the mid-1800s, and is proceeding at a rate not seen over many recent millennia. It is undeniable that human activities have produced the atmospheric gases that have trapped more of the Sun's energy in the Earth system. This extra energy has warmed the atmosphere, ocean, and land, and widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere, and biosphere have occurred.

Do scientists agree on climate change?

Yes, the vast majority of actively publishing climate scientists - 97 percent - agree that humans are causing global warming and climate change.

detailed answer

Earth-orbiting satellites and new technologies have helped scientists see the big picture, collecting many different types of information about our planet and its climate all over the world. These data, collected over many years, reveal the signs and patterns of a changing climate.

Scientists demonstrated the heat-trapping nature of carbon dioxide and other gases in the mid-19th century. Many of the science instruments NASA uses to study our climate focus on how these gases affect the movement of infrared radiation through the atmosphere. From the measured impacts of increases in these gases, there is no question that increased greenhouse gas levels warm Earth in response.

"Scientific evidence for warming of the climate system is unequivocal."

- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Ice cores drawn from Greenland, Antarctica, and tropical mountain glaciers show that Earth's climate responds to changes in greenhouse gas levels. Ancient evidence can also be found in tree rings, ocean sediments, coral reefs, and layers of sedimentary rocks. This ancient, or paleoclimate, evidence reveals that current warming is occurring roughly 10 times faster than the average rate of warming after an ice age. Carbon dioxide from human activities is increasing about 250 times faster than it did from natural sources after the last Ice Age.

References

References
Header image shows clouds imitating mountains as the sun sets after midnight as seen from Denali's backcountry Unit 13 on June 14, 2019. Credit: NPS/Emily Mesner

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Climate Change Evidence: How Do We Know?

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Vital Signs of the Planet: Global Climate Change and Global Warming. How do we know it's happening? Here's the evidence.

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This site is a curated collection of science phenomena for the NGSS, along with phenomenon based learning resources and help for how to use phenomenon to drive student questions in the classroom centered around 3 dimensional teaching and learning.

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Climate Change in a Bottle: Complete Lesson

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Watch a great science lesson to introduce climate change and the greenhouse effect. One teacher gets her Science class prepared for a fun project on climate change, and then takes her students through the entire Science project.

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While climate change is not explicitly addressed in the elementary science standards and curricula, many of its foundational concepts are. Elementary teachers looking to ensure that their students have the proper foundation to learn about climate science in middle school and beyond can turn to the document Climate Literacy: The Essential Principles of Climate Sciences for guidance. It defines seven broad concepts, many of which can be linked back to the elementary curriculum in some manner:

Seven Essential Principles of Climate Literacy

1. The Sun is the primary source of energy for Earth's climate system.

2. Climate is regulated by complex interactions among components of the Earth system.

3. Life on Earth depends on, is shaped by, and affects climate.

4. Climate varies over space and time through both natural and man-made processes.

5. Our understanding of the climate system is improved through observations, theoretical studies, and modeling.

6. Human activities are impacting the climate system.

7. Climate change will have consequences for the Earth system and human lives.

As the seven principles indicate, climate science encompasses concepts from physical, life, and earth and space sciences as well as science and technology and the history and nature of science. In the elementary grades, students can begin constructing a basic understanding of seasonal changes, biomes and ecosystems, the water cycle, and the role of solar energy in heating Earth's atmosphere, land, and water. These concepts, along with knowledge about weather and climate, will prepare students for the more complex principles that will be introduced in later years. Teachers of upper-elementary students may want to introduce climate change at a very basic level, and focus mainly on simple actions that students (and their families) can take to reduce their carbon footprint.

In this article, we've highlighted lessons and activities that help elementary students develop an understanding of weather phenomena, identify weather patterns, and compare and contrast weather around the world. Older students begin to differentiate between weather and climate. We've also included age-appropriate resources for introducing climate change and activities that promote environmental responsibility.

Finally, we've aligned each lesson to the appropriate national standards - National Science Education Standards and the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE)/International Reading Association (IRA) Standards for the English Language Arts. The entire National Science Education Standards document can be read online or downloaded for free from the National Academies Press web site. The content standards are found in Chapter 6. The NCTE/IRA Standards may be viewed online as well.

WEATHER AND WEATHER PATTERNS
To integrate literacy into these two lessons, try using science notebooks:
Weather Stations: Teaching the Science and Technology Standard (Grades K-5)
This article from the Weather and Climate issue of Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears provides resources that help teachers create classroom or school weather stations. Creating a weather station can meet the Science as Inquiry, Earth and Space Science, and Science and Technology content standards of the National Science Education Standards.
To integrate literacy into activities with weather stations, try incorporating field journals or science notebooks:
Weather Scope (Grades 3-5)

In this project, students observe and track weather in their hometown and two additional locations to learn about weather, factors influencing weather and climate, and weather forecasting.

This lesson meets the following content standards of the National Science Education Standards: Science as Inquiry, Earth and Space Science, and Science and Technology.
To further integrate literacy skills into this lesson, try:
Climate Change
To integrate literacy into these activities, try field journals or science notebooks:
Modeling the Greenhouse Effec t (Grades 3-5)
In this lesson students will model the greenhouse effect and draw conclusions about global warming. This lesson meets the Science in Personal and Social Perspectives Content Standard of the National Science Education Standards.
To integrate literacy skills into these lessons, try the following: To further integrate literacy skills into this lesson, try:
GREEN ACTIVITIES (ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSIBILITY)

Be Energy Wise! (Grades K-2)
In this lesson students learn how electricity comes into their homes and what household appliances and devices use electricity. They create reminders and posters to help their families remember to turn off lights and reduce hot water use.

This lesson meets the Science in Personal and Social Perspectives Content Standard of the National Science Education Standards.
To further integrate literacy skills into this lesson, try:
Taking Action: Energy Efficiency at Home and at School (Grades K-5)
This article from the Energy and the Polar Environment issue of Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears discusses ways that students can participate in making their schools and homes more energy efficient. These activities meet the Science in Personal and Social Perspectives Content Standard of the National Science Education Standards.

True Green Kids: 100 Things You Can Do to Save the Planet (Grades 3-5)
This is a three-day lesson linked to ideas in the award-winning, children's environmental science book True Green Kids: 100 Things You Can Do to Save the Planet by Kim McCay and Jenny Bonnin (National Geographic, 2008). Students work in teams - Green Corps - to give recyclable items new uses. At the end, they create posters of their creations and display the posters on all sides of a large box - such as the kind that institutional lots of toilet paper rolls come in - to create the Green Corps Kiosk for prominent display in the class or school. This lesson meets the Science in Personal and Social Perspectives Content Standard of the National Science Education Standards.
This article was written by Jessica Fries-Gaither. For more information, see the Contributors page. Email Jessica at Copyright June 2010 - The Ohio State University. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0733024. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. This work is licensed under an Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons license. beyondpenguins@msteacher.org.

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Lessons and Activities to Build the Foundations for Climate Literacy - Climate Change and the Polar Regions - Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears

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While climate change is not explicitly addressed in the elementary science standards and curricula, many of its foundational concepts are. Elementary teachers looking to ensure that their students have the proper foundation to learn about climate science in middle school and beyond can turn to the document Climate Literacy: The Essential Principles of Climate Sciences for guidance.

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97% of climate experts agree that human-caused climate change is happening. Find out about the reality, risks, and response to the climate challenge. What We Know: http://ow.ly/uFWEM #AAAS #WhatWeKnow

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What does NGSS expect elementary students to know about weather and climate?

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What does NGSS expect elementary students to know about weather and climate?

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The NSTA Next Generation Science Standards Hub offers information, resources, news, professional learning opportunities, and expert advice in understanding and implementing the Next Generation Science Standards - NGSS

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Through its assessments, the IPCC determines the state of knowledge on climate change. It identifies where there is agreement in the scientific community on topics related to climate change, and where further research is needed. The reports are drafted and reviewed in several stages, thus guaranteeing objectivity and transparency. The IPCC does not conduct its own research. IPCC reports are neutral, policy-relevant but not policy-prescriptive. The assessment reports are a key input into the international negotiations to tackle climate change. Created by the United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1988, the IPCC has 195 Member countries. In the same year, the UN General Assembly endorsed the action by WMO and UNEP in jointly establishing the IPCC.

Engage

There are many ways to engage with the IPCC

Special and Methodology Reports

Special Report

Methodology Report

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IPCC - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

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Through its assessments, the IPCC determines the state of knowledge on climate change. It identifies where there is agreement in the scientific community on topics related to climate change, and where further research is needed. The reports are drafted and reviewed in several stages, thus guaranteeing objectivity and transparency.