1. 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. 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. 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. 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. 5. Earth Works as a Complex System 5
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8. 8. 8 NATIONAL CLIMATE IMPACT ASSESSMENT, 2014
9. 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. 10. Is learning about climate change like having a colonoscopy?
11. 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. 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. 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. 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. 15. US NATIONAL CLIMATE ASSESSMENT Spring, 2014 15
16. 16. 16 NCA Spr 2014
17. 17. Normal window of change Epica Community, 2006 17
18. 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. 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. 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
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22. 22. PRECIPITATION Rawlins et al, 2012, JGR 20412070 minus 19712000
23. 23. From Mike Mann
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28. 28. Arctic Dilemma!