Week 13

 

  1. The big question addressed in the lab, and a description of what you did.

We had big questions to answer for the lab this week. What type of data do we have that supports that climate change is happening, what questions did you derive from the data shared, and what answers did you find? My group started the lab by reading the KCRG article. This article was all about the heat in Iowa and how there was more severe weather coming. The article talks about how climate change is here and we are going to feel the effects. It talked about the health of the people in Iowa needing to prepare for the extreme heat because their health will be at risk. Scientists believe that by 2050 the number of days Iowa experiences 90 degree days will triple. These extreme temperature chances will cause flooding, extreme weather, and health risks. The article suggests we switch to solar energy rather than putting out carbon emissions. We then looked at different graphs and did our own research. My group looked at the hot days graphs. We found that the number of hot days are increasing, there are less frozen days and many people are using their AC more than their furnace throughout the year. We found articles that talked about the extreme weather getting worse which will then lead to more tornadoes and tornadoes ruin crops and agriculture. 


  1. A description of what you learned in Thursday's lecture. 

In lecture we continued our conversation about climate change. We started by talking about what some “scientists” believe about climate change. Many people don’t believe climate change is as bad as it really is. But more than 99.9% of studies agree that humans are causing climate change. We have to be the ones to make the change. We then moved on to talking about L.O.W.E.R near water. LOWER stands for..

Latitude: distance from the equator is a key factor in determining whether a climate is hot or cold 

Ocean Currents: temperature of an ocean current affects the temperature of air that passes over it 

Wind & Air Masses: an air mass is a large volume of air that takes on the climatic conditions of the area where it is formed 

Elevation: The higher in altitude, the colder in temperature 

Relief: precipitation created when an air mass rises to cross a mountain barrier 

Near water: 

  • In the summer the water acts like an air conditioner to keep the air temperatures cool 

  • In the winter water acts like a heater to keep the temperature from getting too cold 


  1. Answer questions about the weekly textbook reading:

  1. What did you learn?

To begin this week's textbook reading we started by learning about the difference between weather and climate. Weather is what is happening right now and climate is what usually happens. We learned about LOWER near water, which was a nice review from the lecture. The textbooks also talked about why we should care about climate change. In Iowa we are going to see more and more precipitation and our state bird, the goldfinch, does not survive well with a lot of rain. So eventually our state board is going to go and find somewhere with less rain. Iowa will also see a rise in dangerous heat events. Iowa sees about 23 days of 90 degree temperatures throughout the year and they will increase to 57 to 68 days by 2050. This will have a huge impact on agriculture because higher temperatures lead to longer growing seasons and higher crop yield, unpredictable weather patterns which makes it hard for farmers to be able to harvest the crops, and there will be increased precipitation and flooding. The textbook gave us great suggestions about what we can do about climate change. Some suggestions include calculating our carbon footprint and seeing how much we are affecting climate change and talking to politicians about why we need to take actions. 

  1. What was most helpful?

I felt like this week's textbook was a great review for everything that we talked about in the lab and lecture. I knew a lot of the information already but it did help me clear up some of the questions I still had about what I can do better and to help the environment. 

  1. What do you need more information on?

nothing

  1. What questions/concerns/comments do you have?

Nothing




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