MCP Session 1: Basic Science Resources

(updated 02/09/2023)

FAQs

Homework from Session 1 for Session 2:

View video of Greta Thunberg – Climate activist Greta Thunberg turns 18 Jan 3, 2021 (2.32 minutes).

Videos

Climate Emergency: Feedback Loops – Introduction. Video (13:09) Official Launch with the Dalai Lama and Greta Thunberg (Jan 10, 2021).

How Global Warming Works (5 videos explain how global warming (related to climate change) works in as few as 52 seconds.)

Earthrise Poem (4:30) Amanda Gorman, the first Youth Poet Laureate of the United States, got rave reviews for her poem, “The Hill We Climb,” delivered at the Jan. 20 inauguration of now-President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. She is also a compelling climate leader, as a couple dozen Santa Barbara and Ventura climate activists found out when they attended the Los Angeles Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training in August 2018. Amanda Gorman shared this inspiring poem from the stage.

General

Berkeley Earth   a good source for global climate data and interpretations

How humans disrupted a cycle essential to all life. This is the one thing you need to understand before thinking about our options to fight climate change. By 

How Global Warming Works (5 videos explain how global warming (related to climate change) works in as few as 52 seconds.)

A Brief History of CO2 Emissions (vimeo; Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) 2017)

State of the Climate In 2020. An international, peer-reviewed publication released each summer, the State of the Climate is the authoritative annual summary of the global climate published as a supplement to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

IPCC Assessment Report 6: Physical Science Basis (2021)

National Climate Assessment

Fifth National Climate Assessment Development of the Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5) is currently underway, with anticipated delivery in 2023. This content will be updated as new information becomes available.

Fourth National Climate Assessment  Volume II: Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States (2018). The National Climate Assessment (NCA) assesses the science of climate change and variability and its impacts across the United States, now and throughout this century. (Pacific Northwest)

Oregon Climate Assessment Reports – Oregon Climate Research Institute

Sixth Report (Jan 2023)

Full version (47 mb)

Executive Summary (2 pgs)

Individual Chapters

Fifth Report (Jan 2021)

Fourth Report (2019)

Oregon Climate Assessment Report (2010)

Pictorial timeline to counter the rubric “climate is always changing”!

Melting Permafrost Emits More Methane Than Scientists Thought (April 2, 2018) Methane emissions are the source of the greenhouse gas which, after carbon dioxide, probably causes climatologists more sleepless nights than any of the other gases. And now it appears they have quite a lot more to bother them than they had realized.

Looking for signs of global warming? They’re all around you (June 19, 2018) by Seth Borenstein, The Daily News. More than 40 years ago, the University of Maryland biologist started studying when wildflowers, birds, bees and butterflies first appeared each spring on this mountain. These days, plants and animals are arriving at Rocky Mountain Biological Lab a week or two earlier than they were 30 years ago. The robins that used to arrive in early April now show up in mid-March. Marmots end their winter slumber ever earlier.

Climate Change has become too hot to handle (June 20, 2018) Seth Borenstein and Steve Peoples, The Associated Press. When it comes to global warming, America’s political climate may have changed more than the Earth’s over the past three decades. NASA scientist James Hansen put the world on notice about global warming on June 23, 1988. After all, Republicans and Democrats had worked together on an international agreement to fix the hole in the Earth’s ozone layer. Republicans would later represent eight of the 20 co-sponsors on the first major bills to fight climate change in 1980s and 1990s.

Key Question 1.What is the difference between climate and weather?

Weather & Climate Basics: What Is the Difference Between Weather and Climate? National Center for Atmospheric Research & the UCAR Office of Programs.

Key Question 2. What is the current scientific understanding of anthropogenic (human-induced) global warming and climate change?

IPCC Assessment Report 6: Physical Science Basis (2021)

GISS Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP)

Fundamentals of Environmental Measurements – Solar Radiation & Photosynthetically Active Radiation FONDRIEST: Environmental Learning Center

Spectrum of Solar Radiance (2011) Four Peaks Technologies

IPCC Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis – Summary for Policymakers   

Skeptical Science – Where is global warming going?

Surface Temperature Analysis NASA: GISS

Met Office – Human influence important factor in possible global and UK temperature records

Key Question 3. What are the major contributors to global warming?

Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions Data (Global emissions)

Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions Data US EPA: Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks

The Carbon Mistake: Why carbon is not always the appropriate target of our efforts (May 17, 2020) Alan Journet

Key Question 4. Are climate models credible?

4th National Climate Assessment Report. Volume I, Chapter 3: Detection and attribution of climate change (2017)