EarthComm Earth System Evolution: Climate Change and Your Community Activity 1

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Earthsystem Evolution book
It's About Time/AGI

Factors Affecting Climate

  • What's Climate Change?, INNOVA Center for Sustainable Development
    This web site offers information on factors affecting climates, including both natural and human factors.
  • What is Climate?, TERC
    This site provides basic information on factors that influence the measurement of climates (i.e., elevation, latitude, prevailing wind direction, topography, and ocean currents).
  • Latitude
  • Elevation and Geographic Features
    • Elevation in Colorado, Colorado State University
      Discover the effects of elevation on Colorado's climate.    
    • Secondary Influences on Climate
      The secondary influences affecting climate are introduced in this web site including position relative to land and water masses, altitude, topography, prevailing winds, ocean currents, and prevalence of cyclonic storms agents.
    • Back to the Isle of Man: Geography and Climate, IM Government
      Explore the British island, Isle of Man, and learn what role its geography has in creating its mild climate.
  • Global Climate
    • The Official Global Climate Observation System Web Site, World Meteorological Organization, the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO, the United Nations Environment Programme, and the International Council for Science
      This web site provides information on world weather and climate conditions as well as global climate change with respect to mean sea level and terrestrial ecosystems.
    • Climate Change, the United States Global Change Research Program
      Learn about the factors affecting the world's climate system (i.e., natural and anthropogenic changes) and how these can also influence it's social and economic well-being by exploring this web site.

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Part A: Physical Features and Climate in Your Community, to complete the investigation, each student group will need:

  • Topographic map of community
     
  • Resources that provide climate data tables. Visit the following web sites:
    • Comparative Climactic Data for the United States through 2000, NOAA
      If you would like to access other information (i.e., temperature, wind, sunshine, cloudiness, and humidity) on additional locations which are not provided in the book, visit this web site.
    • National Weather Service
      This link takes you to a directory with folders for 37 states and/or provinces. Inside each folder there are daily climate data and forecasts for selected locations in that area. Data is not available for all states at this site.
    • Climate-at-a-Glance, NOAA
      Search 106 years of archived weather data for the United States at this site. The user can query the site by searching for national, regional, state, and city information, by preciptation or temperature, and period of time. This site even allows the user to display the information in a bar chart, line chart, or table.
    • NOAA El Nino Page, U.S. Climate Prediction Center
      This website provides data tables/maps of US precipitation and temperature rates based on data from previous El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events.

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Part B: Physical Features & Climate in a Different Community, to complete the investigation, each student group will need:

  • Topographic map of a different community

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To learn more about weather systems in the United States, visit the following web sites:

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To learn more about the jet stream, visit the following web sites:

  • Jet Stream, National Weather Service (NWS)
  • Jet Steam, University of Illinois
  • Understanding Winds, Jet Streams, USAToday.com
    Scroll down to the "Understanding Winds, Jet Streams" section of this online newspaper to investigate the science behind the jet stream.

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