This interactive tool displays changes in air temperature, alterations in global precipitation, wind speed, and solar radiation worldwide from 1950 to 2022, and shifts in CO2 emissions around the globe from 1960 to 2021.
Students will learn that most countries are warmer now than in 1950, global precipitation patterns have shifted noticeably since 1950, and many countries have dramatically increased their CO2 emissions since 1960.
Teaching Tips
Positives
This tool provides innumerable data, including annual, seasonal, monthly, and daily sections for global and national information.
A video is available to give instructions and provides a practical demonstration for students.
Additional Prerequisites
An instructional video is attached to this interactive tool.
For CO2 emissions, this tool only provides the annual emissions of individual countries.
Teachers can download the data as a spreadsheet.
It may benefit students to go over the labels and units of measurement before they do any independent exploration.
Differentiation
This interactive tool can supplement a classroom activity where students investigate continental/sub-continental differences in CO2 emissions.
Teachers can use this interactive tool to create free-response questions about climate variable changes in America since 1950.
This interactive tool can augment a lesson on the connection between CO2 emissions and changes in the Earth's climate.
Have students practice using the tool's features by giving them a series of questions to find. For example, students can use the precipitation filter and time slider to answer the question, "How many mm/year of precipitation did Greenland receive in 1967?"
Students in language arts classes can use this tool to gather evidence to support informative or persuasive pieces of writing about climate change.
Scientist Notes
This excellent visualization tool combines observed data, reanalysis data, and climate projections. The information comes from top-quality datasets that are used across academic journals. The only information not immediately available was which CMIP6 models were used for the calculations.
Standards
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
ESS2: Earth's Systems
HS-ESS2-2 Analyze geoscience data to make the claim that one change to Earth’s surface can create feedbacks that cause changes to other Earth systems.
HS-ESS2-4 Use a model to describe how variations in the flow of energy into and out of Earth’s systems result in changes in climate.
ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
MS-ESS3-5 Ask questions to clarify evidence of the factors that have caused the rise in global temperatures over the past century.
HS-ESS3-5 Analyze geoscience data and the results from global climate models to make an evidence-based forecast of the current rate of global or regional climate change and associated future impacts to Earth systems.
College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Standards
Dimension 2: Geography
D2.Geo.2.6-8 Use maps, satellite images, photographs, and other representations to explain relationships between the locations of places and regions, and changes in their environmental characteristics.
D2.Geo.1.9-12 Use geospatial and related technologies to create maps to display and explain the spatial patterns of cultural and environmental characteristics.
Common Core Math Standards (CCSS.MATH)
Functions: Interpreting Functions (9-12)
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.HSF.IF.B.6 Calculate and interpret the average rate of change of a function (presented symbolically or as a table) over a specified interval. Estimate the rate of change from a graph.
