Climate change
Lesson plans
1. EARTH’S CLIMATE
But what is the climate?
Lessons on the Earth climate.
2. Global warming
Scientific evidence for warming of the climate system is unequivocal.
Over the past 50 years, the average global temperature has increased at the fastest rate in recorded history.
Lessons on global warming
3. Warming oceans and Sea level rise
The seas of the Earth are rising, a direct result of a changing climate. Ocean temperatures are increasing, leading to ocean expansion. An armada of increasingly sophisticated instruments, deployed across the oceans, on polar ice and in orbit, reveals significant changes among globally interlocking factors that are driving sea levels higher.
4. Glacial retreat and Declining Artic sea ice
Glaciers are retreating almost everywhere around the world — including in the Alps, Himalayas, Andes, Rockies, Alaska and Africa.The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have decreased in mass.
Both the extent and thickness of Arctic sea ice has declined rapidly over the last several decades.
Lessons
5. Biodiversity loss
Human activity has been causing massive extinctions
Current extinction rates are up to 100 times
greater than natural, background extinction rates, because of the effect
of humans on other organisms and ecosystems. We impact the world around
us in many ways, some of which are more destructive than others.
6. Extreme events
Some extreme weather and climate events have increased in recent decades, and new and stronger evidence confirms that some of these increases are related to human activities.
7. Earth monitoring
The Earth monitoring missions are designed to improve our understanding of Earth. They use cutting-edge space technologies to learn more about the interactions between the atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere and Earth’s interior, essential how Earth works as a system.