Climate change has been a controversial topic over the years, but at the same time, there is no denying that it is occurring at this very moment. There are countless contributors to the reason why the stability of our climate is off the charts within the last few decades. Some contributors include the emissions from our transportation options such as cars, trains, airplanes, etc. Other subscribers to our ever-changing climate are power plants, factories, wildfires, deforestation and agriculture. All of this, unfortunately, is caused by humans. All of the contributors to climate change listed previously are all man-made. The climate is not only affecting our everyday lives with the pollution caused by a high amount of kinetic energy that is in our atmosphere which can affect our health, but it is also affecting the earth on a global scale. Having domesticated the majority of the land throughout the earth to suit our human lifestyles, we retain the responsibility to maintain the well-being of our national parks and our environment to the greatest extent.
An article provided by the University of California-Berkeley, titled ‘National Parks Bear the Brunt of Climate Change’, touches the basis of our continuous problem with climate change with a focus on the effect it has on our national parks. The team of researchers from Berkeley have studied and analyzed the outcome of our soaring climate change within in the course of a century, which has surpassed almost double the average temperatures in an increasing rate. According to Patrick Gonzalez, professor in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at UC Berkeley, the reason behind our developing expansion of wildfires as well our rapid liquefying of our national glaciers are all results of human activity. In order to reduce the rate at which the temperature of our national parks is heading towards, Gonzalez suggests we reduce our emissions from our list of almost never-ending contributors due to human activity. These factors have an impact on the pollution in our atmosphere. In turn, this will benefit the climate not only for the sake of human survival, but the survival of our environment because without the land that we call earth, we could not be.
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Methods
In their studies, the research team used date from the weather stations to determine why and how the climate has increased significantly within our national parks. By using maps which gather the annual temperatures, as well as the rate of rainfall in the course of over a century which dates back to approximately 1895, the team recorded the trends. They were then, translated into maps varying from colors of red for hot and blue for cold, but also ranging in temperature of -1 degrees Celsius and to approximately 3 degrees Celsius per century. Although using the method of gathering data from weather stations may be the most accurate form of finding annual changes in climate to create visual maps of trending environmental downfall, there are other methods to consider and test.
In another article, ‘Thorough, Not Thoroughly Fabricated: The Truth About Global Temperature Data’, written by Scott K. Johnson, suggests that weather station data can be replaced by studying water levels or homogenization (the process of making things uniform or similar) using algorithms to determine weather changes. He studied water levels by using pressure to sense atmospheric tension to regulate daily weather inconsistencies. Johnson suggested that weather station changes show divergence as it drops and increases regularly as shown on charts or graphs as the data is recorded. On the other hand, his idea of homogenization had proved to show the best climate trend. Although this method has not been practiced by many, his study with the use of algorithms of “space and time at the same locations” (Johnson), brought forth information that did not augment the trends, rather, it accommodated into one single direction. Although homogenization was a process Johnson studied, he goes back to the his original, more reliable method of calculating and tracking of climate change: marine temperature records. The best way to do such a study is to gather data from air temperature on land followed by the measurement of the temperature on the ocean’s surface. Although the methods to gather this information could be difficult, Johnson was able to round up similar global ocean temperature. This was a MOC-experiment that needs more trials to be able to receive the verification it needs.
Results and Discussion
Within the data coming from the weather stations determining the climate changes or biogenic emissions in our national parks, we can rule that the data accurately depicts increases in temperature over the decades. It was found that the overall temperature of our national parks had increased by over 1 degree Celsius from 1895 to 2010, which is an increase of relatively twice as much as the rest of the United States. As for the percentage of rainfall in a period of over one hundred years, the rainfall has decreased by an overwhelming 12 percent within our nation’s national park lands.
Future of the Research
When attempting to calculate the trends of both rainfall and temperature within the country, the team had found an outstanding increase in temperature and a decrease in rainfall. Seeing that climate change has an obvious and drastic effect on our national parks, the research team used maps in order to predict future changes. These predictions were separated into four different scenarios. One of the results was to come from scenario involving emission reduction. The other scenario involved following the Paris Agreement, which is an agreement made nationally to hold the global warming level under 2 degrees Celsius. Scenarios associated with downscaled climate models were also experimented with. The temperature of the scenario with the most drastic change in climate is set to increase by more the 4 to 6 degrees Celsius from its current state. This would bring the temperature within the national parks to about 5 to 7 degrees Celsius in a worst-case scenario. Considering the increase in climate in extreme climate changes, following guidelines of the Paris Agreement would set our overall national park temperature far below the 5 to 7 degrees Celsius of the scenario before. The Paris Agreement would allow there to be an increase of only 1 to 3 degrees Celsius in temperature. This is no better, nonetheless, it is far below under worse circumstances.
Classroom Application
When connecting the article, ‘National Parks Bear the Brunt of Climate Change’, to NGSS Crosscutting Concept 7: Stability and Change, there is a clear reason as to why these two relate. The condition at which our global warming is set, expresses a cry for both stability and change. This can be associated to thermal energy that is caused by the pollution in our earth’s atmosphere. The kinetic energy projected in the atmosphere is due to molecular collisions. In this case, the collision comes from the matter holding the high heat energy propelling into matter with moderate thermal energy. National parks are known for being peaceful and breezy, but the thermal energy of our climate has affected the temperature of these parks. Furthermore, a disciplinary core idea that goes along with stability and change is the concept of conservation of energy and energy transfer (PS3.B). One way to describe the energy being transferred into the atmosphere could be the deterioration of the earth due to man-made pollutants such as waste, smog, toxins, etc. The energy within such contaminants is converted into thermal energy which enters the atmosphere, but the cycle does not end there. Although scientists have warned that the earth will reach a point of no return in 12 years if conservation of energy from emissions are not met, we need IPCC (UN International Panel on Climate Change) and the Paris Agreement to be enforced throughout the world (The Guardian, 2018).
Works Cited
- Johnson, Scott K., and UTC. “Thorough, Not Thoroughly Fabricated: The Truth About Global Temperature Data”. Ars Technica, 21 Jan. 2016, http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/thorough-not-thoroughly-fabricated-the-truth-about-global-temperature-data/
- “National Parks Bear the Brunt of Climate Change”. Phys.org - News and Articles on Science and Technology, http://phys.org/news/2018-09-national-brunt-climate.html
- Watts, Jonathan. “We Have 12 Years to Limit Climate Change Catastrophe, Warns UN”. The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 8 Oct. 2018, www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/08/global-warming-must-not-exceed-15c-warns-landmark-un-report
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