Task card # 2: Concept Map

Let the learners write anything that comes into their mind upon seeing the word
CLIMATE CHANGE.

CLIMATE
CHANGE

Task card # 3

Ref. http://www.iicat.org/richard-widicks-iicat-research-portal/

GUIDE QUESTIONS:
(1) How many sq. km. does Arctic sea ice occupied on the year 1987? How about on year 2012?
(2) Infer what would be the possible reason of the changes on the area covered by Arctic sea Ice.
 Task Card # 4: “Who Am I”

Direction: Decode the statement behind these illustrations. All the statements are related to the effects of climate
change.

1.

___________________________

2. ___________________________

3. - FREE DRY & WET

______________________________________________

4.

MORE

________________________________________________
5.

_______________________

6.

LEVEL
_____________________

7.

- FREE TIC
____________________
ANSWER KEY: Task Card # 4

Some of the long-term effects of global climate change

1. Temperatures will continue to rise

2. Frost-free season (and growing season ) will lengthen

3. Changes in precipitation

4. More drought and heat waves

5. Hurricanes will become stronger and more intense

6. sea- level will rise

7. Arctic to be likely ice-free

FURTHER READINGS:
To reconstruct past climates, scientists must examine and then carefully
piece together all the available evidence. Unfortunately, the evidence only
gives a general understanding of what past climates were like
Fossil pollen of a tundra plant collected in a layer of sediment in New
England and dated to be 12,000 years old suggests that the climate of that
region was much colder than it is today.
Other evidence of global climatic change comes from core samples
taken from ocean floor sediments and ice from Greenland and Antarctica.
Still other evidence of climatic change comes from the study of annual
growth rings of trees, called dendrochronology. As a tree grows, it produces
a layer of wood cells under its bark. Each year’s growth appears as a ring.
The changes in thickness of the rings indicate climatic changes that may have
taken place from one year to the next. The density of late growth tree rings is
an even better indication of changes in climate. The presence of frost rings
during particularly cold periods and the chemistry of the wood itself provide
additional information about a changing climate. Tree rings are only useful in
regions that experience an annual cycle and in trees that are stressed by
temperature or moisture during their growing season. The growth of tree
rings has been correlated with precipitation and temperature patterns for
hundreds of years into the past in various regions of the world.
Other data have been used to reconstruct past climates, such as:
1. records of natural lake-bottom sediment and soil de- posits
2. the study of pollen in deep ice caves, soil deposits, and sea sediments
3. certain geologic evidence (ancient coal beds, sand dunes, and fossils), and the
change in the water level of closed basin lakes
4. documents concerning droughts, floods, crop yields, rain, snow, and dates of lakes
freezing
5. the study of oxygen-isotope ratios of corals
6. dating calcium carbonate layers of stalactites in caves
7. borehole temperature profiles, which can be inverted to give records of past
temperature change at the surface
8. deuterium (heavy hydrogen) ratios in ice cores, which indicate temperature changes

Number of ways the earth’s climate can change by natural means.

 The external causes of climate change include:(1) changes in incoming solar

radiation; (2) changes in the composition of the atmosphere; (3) changes in the surface
of the earth.
 The shifting of continents, along with volcanic activity and mountain building, are
possible causes of natural climate change.

 The Milankovitch theory(in association with other natural forces) proposes that
alternating glacial and interglacial episodes during the past 2.5 million years are the
resultof small variations in the tilt of the earth’s axis and in the geometry of the
earth’s orbit around the sun.

 Trapped air bubbles in the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica reveal that CO 2
levels and methane levels were lower during colder glacial periods and higher during
warmer interglacial periods. But even when the levels were higher, they still were
much lower than they are today.

 Fluctuations in solar output(brightness)may account for periods of climatic change.

 Volcanic eruptions, rich in sulfur, may be responsible for cooler periods in the
geologic past.

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