This tool is best used on a laptop or other larger screen and may not function correctly on a phone.
By clicking any link on this page you are giving your consent for us to set cookies. More info
Level: Secondary Geography
secondary-geography
Select a letter to see a definition of the terms in the climate change association tool. Alternatively, to find a teaching resource associated with any of the terms, use the ‘all climate change’ drop-down menu on the right. Not all the terms have associated resources yet, but we are adding new ones all the time.
1-10
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
1-10
1.5 degree target
The increase in global temperature above the pre-industrial climate that scientists use as a projection for when we start to see devastating climate impacts and lasting changes. The aim is to keep below this number.
2 degree target
Two degrees isn’t a ‘safe’ level of climate change – there will be unpleasant consequences even if the temperature doesn’t rise that much. However, it is easy to understand and a useful marker of how we’re doing at limiting climate change that has helped focus minds on the scale of the challenge. A global average warming of 2°C will mean that some places warm by more, and some by less, than 2°C. Similarly, precisely how much warmer it is will vary with the season and type of weather.
A
Abrupt change
A sudden change in the climate system.
Access to shelter
Protection from an unfavourable situation, such as an extreme weather event, too much heat, a shortage of water or a lack of access to suitable habitat
Action
A range of activities, mechanisms and policies that aim to reduce the severity of human induced climate change and its impacts.
Activism and advocacy
People coming together to put pressure on policy makers and business leaders to take action.
Adaptation
The process of adjustment to actual or expected climate and its effects. In human systems, adaptation seeks to moderate harm or exploit beneficial opportunities. In natural systems, human intervention may facilitate adjustment to expected climate and its effects.
Afforestation
Planting of new forests on land that has not recently been wooded.
Agriculture
Farming, including cultivation of the soil for the growing of crops and the rearing of animals to provide food, wool, and other products.
Air quality
The term we use to describe the concentration of pollutants in the atmosphere.
aircraft Vehicles used to transport goods and people.
Albedo
The fraction of solar radiation reflected by a surface or object, often expressed as a percentage. Snow-covered surfaces have a high albedo, the albedo of soils ranges from high to low, and vegetation-covered surfaces and oceans have a low albedo. The Earth’s planetary albedo varies mainly through varying cloudiness, snow, ice, leaf area and and cover changes.
Anthropocene
A geological period subsequent to the Holocene where humans have become the single most influential species on the planet, causing significant global warming and other changes to land, environment, water, organisms and the atmosphere.
Anthropogenic
Resulting from or produced by human activities.
Aquifer
An underground layer of permeable rock which can contain or transmit water.
Arctic/ Antarctic
The regions around the North and South Poles
Atmosphere
An envelope of gases surrounding the Earth. The main gases are nitrogen and oxygen, with smaller amounts of other gases such as water vapour, carbon dioxide and methane.
Attribution
The process of evaluating the relative contributions of multiple causal factors to a change or event with an assignment of statistical confidence
B
Barriers to action
A barrier is any type of challenge or constraint that can slow or halt progress on mitigation or adaptation but that can be overcome with concerted effort.
Batteries
Store energy, usually in the form of chemical potential or gravitational potential energy.
Behavioural change
Action from consumers, workers, households, businesses and citizens to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change.
Bias
Presenting a particular viewpoint, event or data set in an unfair way so as to support or oppose it.
Biodiversity
The variation of different life forms in an ecosystem or the planet as a whole.
Biofuels
Any fuel (liquid, solid or gas) produced from organic matter (matter from animals or plants).
Biogeochemical cycles
The movement and transformation of chemical elements and compounds between the biosphere, the atmosphere, and the Earth’s crust.
Biosphere
The part of the Earth system comprising all ecosystems and living organisms in the atmosphere, on land (terrestrial biosphere), or in the oceans (marine biosphere).
Buildings
Structures such as houses and factories.
C
Capacity building
In the context of climate change, capacity building is a process of developing the technical skills and resources of people and institutions to enable them to participate in all aspects of adaptation to, mitigation of, and research into, climate change.
Carbon budget
The total amount of carbon dioxide that can be emitted into the atmosphere over a period of time to keep within a certain temperature threshold, for example 1.5°C.
Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)
A process involving the capture of carbon dioxide from fuel combustion or industrial processes before it is released into the atmosphere. The isolated CO2 is then transported and stored deep underground in geological formations.
Carbon cycle
The term used to describe the flow of carbon through the atmosphere, land, ocean and biospheres.
Carbon dioxide removal/ sequestration
The process of capturing, securing and storing carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere.
Carbon footprint
A measure of the amount of carbon dioxide equivalent released into the atmosphere as a result of the activities of a particular individual, product, organization, or community.
Carbon market
A term for a trading system through which countries or companies may buy or sell units of greenhouse gas emissions in an effort to meet their national limits on emissions. The term comes from the fact that carbon dioxide is the predominant greenhouse gas, and other gases are measured in units called “carbon-dioxide equivalents”
Carbon neutral
Achieved when anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions are balanced globally by their removal over a specific period.
Carbon offsetting
A reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, or an increase in carbon storage, is used to compensate for emissions occurring elsewhere
Carbon sinks
Carbon sink is a process or mechanism that removes and stores carbon dioxide from the atmosphere such as plants, oceans and soils.
Carbon trading
Carbon trading is a market-based system aimed at reducing greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, particularly carbon dioxide emitted by burning fossil fuels, involving the buying and selling of credits that permit a company or other entity to emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide.
Cascading effects
Extreme events, in which cascading effects increase in progression over time and generate unexpected secondary events of strong impact, which may be felt elsewhere in the world.
Causes
Forcing or other mechanisms which cause climate change.
CH4/ methane emissions
The human-caused release of methane, a naturally occurring gas, and also a by-product of agriculture, fossil fuel use and waste processing.
Changing futures
The extent of future climate change depends on what we do now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The more we emit, the larger future changes will be.
Circular economy
An economy in which products, services and systems are designed to maximise their value and minimise waste. Resources flow in a circle (make, use, remake) rather than a line (make, use, dispose).
Climate
The average weather, or more rigorously, the statistical description in terms of the mean and variability of relevant quantities over a period of time ranging from months to thousands or millions of years. The classical period for averaging these variables is 30 years, as defined by the World Meteorological Organization. The relevant quantities are most often surface variables such as temperature, precipitation and wind.
Climate change
A change in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g., by using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties, and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer. Climate change may be due to natural internal processes or external forcings such as modulations of the solar cycles, volcanic eruptions, and persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use.
Climate Change Committee (CCC)
The Climate Change Committee (CCC) is an independent, statutory body established under the Climate Change Act 2008. Our purpose is to advise the UK and devolved governments on emissions targets and to report to Parliament on progress made in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and preparing for and adapting to the impacts of climate change.
Climate Crisis/ Emergency
Climate crisis is a term describing global warming and climate change, and their impacts. This term and the term climate emergency have been used to describe the threat of global warming to humanity and the planet, and to urge aggressive climate change mitigation.
Climate or Eco Anxiety/ fear
Distress about climate change and its impacts on the landscape and human existence.
Climate engineering/ geoengineering
A broad set of methods and technologies that aim to deliberately alter the climate system in order to alleviate the impacts of climate change. Most, but not all, methods seek to either (1) reduce the amount of absorbed solar energy in the climate system (Solar Radiation Management) or (2) increase net carbon sinks from the atmosphere at a scale sufficiently large to alter climate (Carbon Dioxide Removal).
Climate justice
Concerns about the inequitable outcomes for different people and places associated with vulnerability to climate impacts and the fairness of policy and practice responses to address climate change and its consequences. Climate justice has emerged from the idea that historical responsibility for climate change lies with wealthy and powerful people but it disproportionately impacts the poorest and most vulnerable.
Climate literacy
A climate-literate person understands the essential principles of Earth’s climate system, knows how to assess scientifically credible climate information, communicates about climate change in a meaningful way, and can make informed and responsible decisions regarding actions that may affect climate.
Climate sensitivity
The amount of global surface warming that will occur in response to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentrations compared to pre-industrial levels.
Climate stories
A personal account of climate change from your experience and observations, ranging from despair to hope, from loss to resolve. It is descriptive and makes an emotional connection to climate change.
Climate stripes/ visualisation data
Visualization graphics developed by Prof Ed Hawkins that use a series of coloured stripes chronologically ordered to visually portray long-term temperature trends.
Climate zone shift
A movement in latitude or altitude of a distinct climate zone in response to climate change.
Climate/ radiative forcing
Forcing represents any external factor that influences global climate by heating or cooling the planet. They may be either natural or anthropogenic. Natural forcings include volcanic eruptions, solar variations and orbital forcing; the amount of solar energy reaching Earth changes with orbital parameters eccentricity, tilt and precession of the equinox. Anthropogenic forcings include changes in the composition of the atmosphere and land use change.
Clouds
A visible aggregate of minute droplets of water or particles of ice or a mixture of both floating in the free air. The quantity and type of cloud can respond to climate change and clouds themselves can alter the climate through playing a part in the global energy balance/ budget.
CO2/ Carbon Dioxide emissions
The human-caused release of carbon dioxide, a naturally occurring gas, and also a by-product of burning fossil fuels and biomass. It is the principal anthropogenic greenhouse gas that affects the Earth`s climate.
Coal
Coal is an organic sedimentary rock that is formed from peat. It is predominantly composed of organic carbon and can be classified as lignite, subbituminous, bituminous, and anthracite.
Co-benefits
Climate co-benefits are beneficial outcomes from action that are not directly related to climate change mitigation. Such co-benefits include cleaner air, green job creation, public health benefits from active travel, and biodiversity improvement through expansion of green space.
Cognitive biases
A systematic thought process caused by the tendency of the human brain to simplify information processing through a filter of personal experience and preferences.
Communication
Educating and mobilizing audiences to take action to confront the climate crisis.
Community
Community action is key to reducing the local and global impacts of climate change.
Compound events
Compound weather and climate events describe combinations of multiple climate drivers and/or hazards that contribute to societal or environmental risk. This may be because several weather hazards combine in a particular place, or that a weather or climate precondition aggravates the impacts of another hazard, or that weather hazards in different places lead to an impact.
Confidence/ uncertainty
The IPCC reports use a standardised set of confidence statements. Weather forecasts now frequently come with an indicator of the probability of rain.
Conflict
While conflict exacerbates the effects of climate change, climate change, at least indirectly, drives conflict. People who have been displaced by a combination of both conflict and the consequences of climate change and environmental degradation are extremely unlikely to be able to return home.
Consumerism
The relationship between consumer behaviour and climate change is complex. Changing consumer behaviour is key to reducing the impacts of climate change.
Cooperation/ collaboration
is required at all levels to understand the climate system and find solutions to climate change.
COP
“Conference of the Parties”. The supreme body of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It currently meets once a year to review the UNFCCC’s progress. The word “conference” is not used here in the sense of “meeting” but rather of “association”. The “Conference” meets in sessional periods, for example, the “fourth session of the Conference of the Parties”.
Coral bleaching
The process when corals become white due to various stressors, such as changes in temperature, light, or nutrients. Bleached corals are under more stress and have a higher risk of mortality.
Cryosphere
All regions on and beneath the surface of the Earth and ocean where water is in solid form, including sea ice, lake ice, river ice, snow cover, glaciers and ice sheets, and frozen ground (which includes permafrost).
D
Data Analysis
From machine learning to data visualisation, data science techniques are being used to study the effects of climate change on economic and financial systems, mobility patterns, marine biology, land use and restoration, food systems, disease patterns, and many other impacted areas.
Data Assimilation
The science of combining different sources of information, combining theory with observations, to estimate possible states of a system as it evolves in time.
Data Storage
The electricity used by data storage (including phones, laptops as well as data centres) accounts for approximately 2% of global carbon emissions.
Decarbonisation
Reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions resulting from human activity, with the eventual goal of eliminating them.
Deforestation
Conversion of forest to non-forest.
Depressions
Low pressure weather systems including cyclones in the tropics and mid-latitudes.
Desertification
Reducing the quality and productivity of the land in arid or semi-arid areas. This may be the result of natural climatic variations or human activities.
Detection
Detection of climate change is the process of demonstrating that climate has changed in some way, without providing a reason for that change.
Diet
Where appropriate, shifting food systems towards plant-rich diets – with more plant protein (such as beans, chickpeas, lentils, nuts, and grains), a reduced amount of animal-based foods (meat and dairy) and less saturated fats (butter, milk, cheese, meat, coconut oil and palm oil) – can lead to a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared to current dietary patterns in most industrialized countries.
Disaster risk management
Limiting the amount of risk people face and the level of damage an event might cause.
Domestic policy
Can be driven by International agreements, or by domestic factors such as energy security, environmental concerns or political pressure.
Drought
A period of abnormally dry weather long enough to cause a serious hydrological imbalance. Drought is a relative term; therefore any discussion in terms of precipitation deficit must refer to the particular precipitation-related activity that is under discussion.
E
Earth system
The interacting geosphere, biosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere. Earth system science studies the physical, chemical, biological and human interactions that determine the past, current and future states of the Earth.
Economic incentives
Financial benefits to encourage projects and investments that reduce environmental harm and lead to behavioural change. They include government cash grants for such projects, and tax incentives that reduce tax liabilities to stimulate investments that mitigate environmental impact.
Economy/ economic
The state of a country or region in terms of the production and consumption of goods and services and the supply of money.
Ecosystem based adaptation
A nature-based solution that harnesses biodiversity and ecosystem services to reduce vulnerability and build resilience to climate change.
Ecosystem services
Ecosystem Services are the direct and indirect contributions ecosystems provide for human wellbeing and quality of life. This can be in a practical sense, providing food and water and regulating the climate, as well as cultural aspects such as reducing stress and anxiety.
Ecosystems
A system of interacting living organisms together with their physical environment.
Education
The process of receiving knowledge or skills in a formal (e.g. school or university) or informal context.
Electric vehicles
Electric vehicles include electric passenger cars, electric buses, electric HGVs as well as bicycles and scooters.
Electrification
Electrification means replacing technologies or processes that use fossil fuels, like internal combustion engines and gas boilers, with electrically-powered equivalents, such as electric vehicles or heat pumps.
Emissions gap
The difference between where global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are heading under the current Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and where science indicates emissions should be in 2030 to be on a least-cost path towards limiting warming to below 2°C or further to 1.5°C.
Energy
Utilising physical or chemical resources to provide light and heat or to work machines. In physics, energy is defined as the capacity to do work.
Energy performance certificate
Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) tell you how energy efficient a building is and give it a rating from A, very efficient, to G, inefficient.
Enhanced greenhouse effect
A phrase used to refer to the changes made to the natural greenhouse effect through the anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases.
Equity
The goal of recognizing and addressing the unequal burdens made worse by climate change, while ensuring that all people share the benefits of climate protection efforts. Achieving equity means that all people—regardless of their race, colour, gender, age, sexuality, national origin, ability, or income—live in safe, healthy, fair communities.
Evidence
Evidence informs our understanding of the Earth’s climate system as well as the interaction of people with it.
Exposure
The presence of assets in places where they could be damaged.
Extinction
The risk of local or global species extinction increases with every degree of warming.
Extinction Rebellion (XR)
Extinction Rebellion is a UK-founded global environmental movement, with the stated aim of using nonviolent civil disobedience to compel government action to avoid tipping points in the climate system, biodiversity loss, and the risk of social and ecological collapse.
Extreme event attribution
The process of evaluating the relative contributions of multiple causal factors to an extreme weather event with an assignment of statistical confidence.
Extreme weather
An extreme weather event is an event that is rare in a specific area or time; typically only on 10% of occasions. These may include heat waves, floods, droughts, hurricanes etc. Single extreme events cannot be attributed to human-caused climate change, as it is possible that the event in question might have occurred naturally.
F
Fairness/ inequality
Fairness means different things to different communities. Climate change, fairness, justice and inequality are inexorably linked, particularly in the Sustainable Development Goals.
Famine
A famine is a widespread scarcity of food caused by several factors including war, natural disasters or ongoing environmental or climate change, crop failure, widespread poverty, an economic catastrophe or government policies.
Feedback loops
A feedback is an initial process in the climate which leads to a change in another process in the climate, which then influences the initial one. There are many feedback mechanisms in the climate system that can either amplify (increase – ‘positive feedback’) or diminish (decrease – ‘negative feedback’) changes in the Earth’s climate.
Finance
Green financing is to increase level of financial flows (from banking, micro-credit, insurance and investment) from the public, private and not-for-profit sectors to sustainable development priorities. A key part of this is to better manage environmental and social risks, take up opportunities that bring both a decent rate of return and environmental benefit and deliver greater accountability.
Fire weather
Weather conditions (including relative humidity, temperature, wind speed and direction and soil moisture) suitable for the start and spread of wild fires. Fire weather does occur naturally but is becoming more severe and widespread due to climate change.
Fisheries
Climate change threatens fish stocks, but also creates new opportunities for fishing.
Flash flooding
A sudden local flood, occurring when rain falls so fast that the underlying ground cannot drain it away fast enough – for example because it has been baked dry by preceding warm, dry weather.
Flood defences
These can include moveable gates and barriers, coastal defences such as groynes and sea walls, river defences such as levees and weirs, diversion canals and floodplains.
Flooding/ flood risk
The risk to an area from rivers, the sea, surface water, reservoirs or ground water.
Food security
Food security is defined when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. It includes the physical availability of food, economic and physical access to food, the stability of the availability and access to food.
Forests
A vegetation type dominated by trees.
Fossil fuels
Carbon-based fuels from deposits, including coal, oil, and natural gas, which release carbon dioxide when they are burnt.
Friends of the Earth
Friends of the Earth is an environmental campaigning community dedicated to the wellbeing and protection of the natural world and everyone in it.
Fuel security
The uninterrupted availability of energy sources at an affordable price.
G
Geothermal energy
Geothermal energy is a renewable energy source based on using the thermal energy in the Earth’s crust. It combines energy from the formation of the planet and from radioactive decay. It can be used to heat water and generate electricity.
Global Atmospheric Circulation
The movement of air around the Earth driven by unequal heating of the Earth’s surface by the Sun.
Global energy budget/ balance
The Earth is a physical system with an energy budget that includes all gains of incoming energy and all losses of outgoing energy. The Earth’s energy budget is determined by measuring how much energy comes into the Earth system from the Sun, how much energy is lost to space, and accounting for the remainder on Earth and energy flows between the atmosphere and the ocean or land surface.
Global stocktake
Enables countries and other stakeholders to see where they’re collectively making progress toward meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement – and where they’re not. An inventory of everything related to where the world stands on climate action and support, identifying the gaps, and working together to agree on solutions pathways.
Temperature/ Global Warming
Global warming is the long-term increase in the Earth’s surface temperatures observed since the pre-industrial period due to human activities such as land use change and the combustion of fossil fuels.
Global Warming Potential
An index representing the combined effect of the differing times greenhouse gases remain in the atmosphere and their relative effectiveness in absorbing outgoing infrared radiation.
Green careers
Positions in agriculture, manufacturing, R&D, administrative, and service activities aimed at substantially preserving or restoring environmental quality.
Green climate fund
The Green Climate Fund is a fund for projects and programmes that help developing countries mitigate and adapt to climate change.
Green/ carbon colonialism
Western strategies to influence the internal affairs of mostly developing nations or indigenous communities in the name of environmentalism.
Greenhouse Effect
Greenhouse gases effectively absorb infrared radiation (heat), emitted by the Earth`s surface. Thus greenhouse gases trap heat at the surface of the Earth and the lower atmosphere, and increase the temperature there. First identified by scientists including Eunice Newton Foote, Svante Arrhenius, John Tyndall and Guy Stewart Callendar.
Greenhouse gas concentrations
The concentration of gaseous constituents of the atmosphere, both natural and anthropogenic, that absorb and emit radiation at specific wavelengths within the spectrum of terrestrial radiation emitted by the Earth’s surface, the atmosphere itself, and by clouds.
Greenpeace
Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network with a goal of ensuring the ability of the Earth to nurture life in all its diversity.
Greenwashing
Greenwashing refers to the practice of falsely promoting an organization’s environmental efforts or spending more resources to promote the organization as green than are spent to actually engage in environmentally sound practices. Thus greenwashing is the dissemination of false or deceptive information regarding an organization’s environmental strategies, goals, motivations, and actions.
Greta Thunberg
A Swedish environmental activist known for challenging world leaders to take immediate action for climate change. She is credited with raising public awareness of climate change across the world, especially amongst young people.
H
Health
Climate change increases the risk of physical and mental illness.
Heatwaves/ extreme heat
A prolonged period of excessively hot weather for the season and the location.
Hindcasts/ Projections
The response of the climate system to emissions of greenhouse gases and other forcing mechanisms, based upon calculations made by climate models.
Hope
An optimistic state of mind that is based on an expectation of positive outcomes with respect to events and circumstances in one’s life or the world.
Hydroelectric power
A renewable energy source which derives electricity from the kinetic energy of moving water. It may also be used as a store of energy by pumping water to high level reservoirs when there is surplus capacity in the electricity grid.
I
Ice cores
Air bubbles, particles and dissolved chemicals trapped in ancient ice taken from ice cores in Greenland and Antarctica can be used to provide vital information about past climates
Ice sheets
A mass of land ice that is deep enough to cover most of the underlying mountains. There are only two ice sheets in the modern world, one on Greenland and two on Antarctica.
Impact assessment
Impact and vulnerability assessments provide an important basis for identifying adaptation requirements and analysing loss and damage.
Impacts
Consequences of climate change on nature and people
Indifference
Indifference or climate apathy results in anti-climate change advocacy, which undermines the need to take immediate action and obstructs progress on decarbonization. Driven by the fact that climate change seems distant, happening mostly in the future and to other people.
Indigenous knowledge
Local and Indigenous knowledge systems contribute to climate action by observing changing climates, adapting to impacts and contributing to global mitigation efforts.
Individuals
Individual have the capacity to be impacted by climate change and by action for climate change, as well as to take their own action.
Industrial revolution
A period of global transition that occurred from around 1760 to 1840 and included the mechanisation of industrial processes, chemical manufacturing and the increasing use of water and steam power. Anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases increased significantly in this period.
Industry
Economic activity concerned with the processing of raw materials and manufacture of goods.
Fairness/ Inequality
Fairness means different things to different communities. Climate change, fairness, justice and inequality are inexorably linked, particularly in the Sustainable Development Goals.
Inertia
Slowness to respond, for example the climate system is slow to respond to things like human-caused emissions of CO2. This means that, even after emissions are reduced, the climate system will continue to change.
Infrastructure
Climate projections allow the development of climate resilient infrastructure, and technological advances offering climate solutions may also require infrastructure change e.g. for electrification.
Instruments
Weather instruments include thermometers, anemometers, hygrometers, barometers, solarimeters.
Interdisciplinary cooperation
Brings together the social, political and environmental implications of climate change.
International policy
Climate change is a global problem which needs a global response. The international 2015 Paris Agreement frames that response by setting a long-term global temperature goal and requiring bottom-up Nationally-Determined Contributions from each country that reflect their responsibilities and capabilities.
Pests/ invasive species
Climate change can accelerate the introduction and spread of pests and invasive species. The climate change impacts on agriculture and nature can also be compounded by invasive species.
IPCC
Recognising the problem of potential global climate change the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988. The IPCC is made up of the world’s leading scientists in the field of climate change. The role of the IPCC is to assess and review scientific, technical and socio-economic information associated with human-caused climate change.
Irreversible
The severity of damaging human-induced climate change depends not only on the magnitude of the change but also on the potential for irreversibility within a given period of time.
J
Just Stop Oil
A British environmental activist group. Using civil resistance, direct action, vandalism and traffic obstruction, the group aims for the British government to commit to ending new fossil fuel licensing and production.
Just transition
A just transition seeks to ensure that the substantial benefits of a green economy transition are shared widely, while also supporting those who stand to lose economically – be they countries, regions, industries, communities, workers or consumers.
K
Keeling curve
A graph of the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere based on continuous measurements taken at the Mauna Loa Observatory on the island of Hawaii from 1958.
Kelp
A large brown seaweed which absorbs carbon dioxide and has high nutritional value, but it is under threat from rising temperatures, pollution and invasive species.
Kyoto protocol
The Kyoto Protocol is an agreement between 183 countries adopted in 1997, which entered into force on 16 February 2005. Developed countries agreed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions (carbon dioxide, methane, and others) by at least 5% below 1990 levels by 2012.
L
Land ice/ glaciers
Land ice includes glaciers and ice sheets. When land ice melts, it contributes to global sea level rise.
Land use change
Land use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) is a greenhouse gas inventory sector that covers emissions and removals of greenhouse gases resulting from direct human-induced land use, land-use change and forestry activities.
Leadership
Leaders have the capacity to take climate action as well as to provide inspiring role models.
Liability
Legal liability for climate change implicates a growing range of actors, including governments, industry, businesses, non-governmental organisations and individuals.
Loss and damage
Loss and damage becomes necessary when mitigation has failed and adaptation limits have been reached. Losses and damages can arise from both chronic (slow-onset) events (for example, sea-level rise or glacial retreat) and acute (extreme) events. Loss and Damage covers economic and non economic losses such as loss of cultural heritage, biodiversity or gender equality. At COP16 in Cancun in 2010, Governments established a work programme in order to consider approaches to address loss and damage associated with climate change impacts in developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change as part of the Cancun Adaptation Framework.
M
Media
Traditional and social media play a critical role in the communication of climate change as well as the propagation of misconceptions. The media also plays a critical role in communicating extreme weather risk.
Mental health
This can be affected by the direct experience of the impacts of climate change (such as extreme weather events or climate forced migration) or by anxiety about the future.
Met Office
The Meteorological Office, abbreviated as the Met Office, is the United Kingdom’s national weather service.
Metrics/measures are used to quantify the contributions to climate change of emissions of different substances and can thus act as ‘exchange rates’ in multi-component policies or comparisons of emissions from regions/countries or sources/sectors.
Migration (people)
This can be driven by changes in extreme weather events, water security, coastal flooding, extreme heat etc.
Misconceptions
A view or opinion that is incorrect because based on faulty thinking or understanding or faulty information or data.
Mitigation
A human intervention to prevent, reduce, stop or reverse the amount of climate change for example by reducing the sources or enhance the sinks of greenhouse gases.
Mitigation pathways
Mitigation pathways describe future emissions that keep global warming below specific temperature limits.
Modelling
The numbers and equations that describe the climate system, including the physics, chemistry and biology going on within it, how they interact and affect each other. The most comprehensive models include detailed descriptions of atmosphere, land, oceans, snow and ice and the biosphere, and need powerful supercomputers to be able to use them.
Monsoons
The seasonal shift in wind direction that brings alternate very wet and very dry seasons to India and much of South-East Asia and other regions.
Mortality
Can be caused by extreme heat as well as other extreme weather events, as well as through indirect impacts such as changes to pests and diseases.
N
National Adaptation Plans
Reduce vulnerability to the impacts of climate change by building adaptive capacity and resilience and integrate adaptation into new and existing national, sectoral and sub-national policies and programmes, especially development strategies, plans and budgets.
Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)
According to Article 4 paragraph 2 of the Paris Agreement, each Party shall prepare, communicate and maintain successive nationally determined contributions (NDCs) that it intends to achieve. These are basically national mitigation plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Natural greenhouse effect
A phrase used to refer to the atmospheric greenhouse effect as it would be without anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases. Without the natural greenhouse effect, the Earth would be about 33C colder.
Natural gas
A fossil fuel consisting largely of methane and other hydrocarbons. It is formed over millions of years when layers of organic matter (marine microorganisms) decompose under anaerobic conditions with intense heat and pressure underground.
Natural variability
Natural variability refers to variations in climate that are caused by processes other than human influence. It includes variability that is internally generated within the climate system and variability that is driven by natural external factors such as the Sun and volcanic activity.
Nature based solutions
Actions that provide benefits to nature whilst also addressing social challenges. Specifically, the protection, sustainable management and restoration of ecosystems that deliver benefits to both biodiversity and society.
Negotiations
Climate change negotiators meet at least twice a year, in locations around the globe, to discuss and take decisions on how best to tackle climate change and to review the progress made so far. The Conference of the Parties (COP) is the supreme decision-making body of the climate change process.
Net zero
The amount of greenhouse gases put into the air by human activity = the amount of greenhouse gases removed.
N2O (Nitrous Oxide) emissions
A naturally occurring gas, and also a by-product of agricultural processes.
Normative feedback
A tool that can be used to support both a sense of competence, by showing that an individuals values or behaviour is aligned with social expectations, and relatedness, by showing people that there are others in similar situations. Normative feedback can be an effective tool for changing behaviour.
Nuclear power
A non-renewable, low carbon alternative to power generated by fossil fuels.
O
Observations
The WMO identified 54 elements of the global atmosphere, oceans, ice cover and biodiversity that need observing because they provide essential evidence for understanding, predicting and adapting to climate change.
Ocean acidification
A reduction in the pH of the ocean over an extended period of time, caused primarily by uptake of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere.
Ocean circulation
The thermohaline circulation (THC) is the large-scale circulation in the ocean that transforms low-density upper ocean waters to higher-density intermediate and deep waters and returns those waters back to the upper ocean. The circulation is asymmetric, with conversion to dense waters in restricted regions at high latitudes and the return to the surface involving slow upwelling and diffusive processes over much larger geographic regions. The THC is driven by high densities at or near the surface, caused by cold temperatures and/or high salinities, but despite its suggestive though common name, is also driven by mechanical forces such as wind and tides. The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, in which warm shallow water flows northwards, mainly along the western boundary of the ocean, and cold deep water flows southwards, is partly a thermohaline circulation, but mechanical forcing from winds, especially in the Southern Ocean, and tides are also partly responsible.
Ocean currents
Play an important role in regulating global climate, and will be impacted by global warming.
Ocean fertilisation
Ocean fertilization proposes the addition of nutrients to the ocean surface, which ultimately controls the amount of carbon that is sequestered. An example of geo- or climate engineering.
Ocean warming
With a higher heat capacity than land or air, the ocean has absorbed about 90% of the heat generated by rising emissions. The deep ocean warms more slowly than the surface leading to a delayed response to changing atmospheric composition.
Oceans
A key part of the Earth’s climate system.
Oil
Crude oil, also called Petroleum, is a fossil fuel. Like coal and natural gas, petroleum was formed from the remains of ancient marine organisms, such as plants, algae, and bacteria transformed by millions of years of intense heat and pressure.
Other greenhouse gas emissions
The human-caused release of greenhouse gases.
Outreach/ engagement
Can bridge the gap between research and practice/ action at individual, societal, national or organisational levels.
Overshoot
The period of time in which global warming is greater than the 1.5°C mark and then falls back down.
P
Paris Agreement
The Paris Agreement is an international treaty on climate change signed by 192 Parties in Paris in 2015. The USA subsequently dropped out in 2020 but rejoined in 2021. The Paris Agreement’s long-term temperature goal is to keep the rise in mean global temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C. Countries pledged to reduce emissions as soon as possible and reach net zero in the second half of the 21st century. Each country must determine and report on its current emissions. There are also aims associated with improving the ability of parties to adapt to climate change and to mobilise finance to help those most affected.
Party
A state (or regional economic integration organisation such as the European Union) that agrees to be bound by a treaty and for which the treaty has entered into force.
Peat
Peatlands are a type of wetland which are critical for preventing and mitigating the effects of climate change, preserving biodiversity, minimising flood risk, and ensuring safe drinking water. Damaged peatlands are a major source of greenhouse gas emissions.
Per capita emissions
The total emissions of a greenhouse gas (or CO2 equivalent) by a given country divided by the population of that country.
Permafrost
Permanently frozen subsoil, occurring throughout the Polar Regions and locally in other continuously cold areas.
Pests/ invasive species
Climate change can accelerate the introduction and spread of pests and invasive species. The climate change impacts on agriculture and nature can also be compounded by invasive species.
Phenology
The study of periodic plant and animal life cycle events and how these are influenced by seasonal and interannual variations in climate, as well as habitat factors.
Policy
This may be at a national, regional or institutional/ organisational level.
Politics
Climate change is a political issue as well as a scientific, environmental and social one.
Pollen
Pollen extracted from core samples of lake sediments are an important paleoclimate proxy giving information about the vegetation able to thrive at different times in the past.
Polluter pays
The polluter pays principle means that, where possible, the costs of pollution should be borne by those causing it, rather than the person who suffers the effects of the resulting environmental damage, or the wider community.
Pollution
The presence in or introduction into the environment of a substance which has harmful effects such as greenhouse gases, other atmospheric pollutants, plastic waste and other land and water contaminants.
Poverty
People and communities who are poorer are less likely to be able to prepare for climate change linked extreme events. This means the effects are worse, poverty worsens, and the cycle continues. Poverty can also be a barrier to adopting climate change mitigating technologies and practices.
Precipitation
Moisture that is released from the atmosphere as rain, drizzle, hail, sleet or snow.
Priorities/ balance
Policy makers have to balance short term and longer term issues.
Hindcasts/ Projections
The response of the climate system to emissions of greenhouse gases and other forcing mechanisms, based upon calculations made by climate models.
Proxy records
Preserved physical characteristics of the past that stand in for direct meteorological measurements and enable scientists to reconstruct the climatic conditions.
Q
–
R
Radar
The use of radio waves to determine the position and intensity of weather events such as snow and rainfall.
Radiative transfer
The physical phenomenon of energy transfer in the form of electromagnetic radiation. The propagation of radiation through a medium is affected by absorption, emission, and scattering processes.
RCPs
A Representative Concentration Pathway is a greenhouse gas concentration trajectory adopted by the IPCC.
Recycling
Recycling is beneficial to the climate crisis in two main ways: by limiting the amount of raw materials being used and limiting the amount of waste going into landfills.
Regional climate change
The patterns of change of temperature and precipitation in one region may differ significantly from the global average.
Regulation or legislation of individuals, organisations and administrations can lead to behavioural change.
Relevance/ hear and now
Climate change is ‘here and now’ for millions around the world but can seem less relevant for most Western nations. Appreciation of the relevance is critical for driving climate action.
Renewable/ non fossil fuel energy
Renewable energy is energy from a source that is not depleted when used. Nuclear power is not a fossil fuel/ high carbon energy source, but is also not renewable.
Reparations
Climate reparations are loss and damage payments for damage and harm caused by climate change, which may include debt cancellation.
Representation
The representation of all, including minority groups, is key to finding fair climate change solutions.
Research
Helps inform our understanding of climate change and its impacts as well as driving technological solutions for adaptation and mitigation.
Resilience/ vulnerability
In the context of climate change, resilience is the ability to anticipate, prepare for, and respond to hazardous events, trends or disturbances related to climate. Vulnerability is the degree to which a system is susceptible to, or unable to cope with, adverse effects of climate change, including climate variability and extremes. Vulnerability is a function of the character, magnitude, and rate of climate variation to which a system is exposed, its sensitivity, and its adaptive capacity.
Resource loss
The loss of natural resources is a projected consequence of global warming, compounded by other human activities.
Resource use
The unsustainable use of natural resources causes climate and other sustainability issues. Climate change will have an impact on the use and management of some natural resources.
Responsibility
The wealthiest bear the greatest responsibility: the richest 1 per cent of the global population combined account for more greenhouse gas emissions than the poorest 50 per cent.
Reversible
The severity of damaging human-induced climate change depends not only on the magnitude of the change but also on the potential for reversibility within a given period of time.
Rewilding
A form of ecological restoration aimed at increasing biodiversity and restoring natural processes whilst human influence on ecosystems.
Risk
The potential for negative consequences for human or ecological systems from the impacts of climate change, as well as the risks associated with adaptation or mitigation strategies.
River catchment development
River catchments can be developed to reduce flood risk with co-benefits including habitat creation and other ecosystem services.
S
Satellites
Provide key information about the state of the climate system including the atmosphere, oceans and biosphere.
Scenarios
A plausible representation of the future development of emissions of substances that potentially influence the earth’s energy budget (e.g., greenhouse gases, aerosols) and are based on a coherent and internally consistent set of assumptions about driving forces (such as demographic and socioeconomic development, technological change) and their key relationships.
Scepticism
Doubting the status of anthropogenic climate change as a scientific and physical phenomenon or the efficacy of action taken to address climate change.
Schools Strike for Climate
School Strike for Climate, also known as Fridays for Future, Youth for Climate, Climate Strike or Youth Strike for Climate, is an international movement of school students who skip school on Fridays to participate in demonstrations to demand action from political leaders to prevent climate change and for the fossil fuel industry to transition to renewable energy.
Science
Including Social, Physical; Chemical and Biological research.
Sea ice
Floating ice created from the freezing of seawater. Sea ice can also freeze onto the land along a coastline. When sea ice melts, it does not contribute significantly to global sea level rise.
Sea level rise
A change in the average (mean) level of the sea. This may be because water expands as it gets warmer, or because of the additional water from the melting of land ice (glaciers, ice-sheets, etc) but not sea-ice. Relative sea level can also change if the land height changes, eg due to isostatic rebound.
Sector resilience
Each economic sector must build resilience to the impacts of climate change in appropriate ways eg to projected economic or infrastructure impacts.
Sediments and Fossils
Sources of proxy information about past climate eg from preserved pollen, leaves etc.
SIDS (Small Island Developing States)
A grouping of developing countries which are small island countries and tend to share similar sustainable development challenges.
Sir David Attenborough
Since 2006, Sir David has used his unique position as a well-respected broadcaster to raise public awareness and understanding of climate change.
Smart grid technology
Digital technologies, sensors and software to better match the supply and demand of electricity in real time while minimizing costs and maintaining the stability and reliability of the grid.
Social norms
Social norms (the informal rules that govern behaviour in groups and societies) are often a barrier to addressing climate change but can be part of the solution.
Social science
The study of human society and social relationships.
Societal change
A transformation of cultures, institutions, and functions in response to climate change or the threat of climate change.
Society
A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. ”
Soil health
The continued capacity of soil to function as a vital living ecosystem that sustains plants, animals, and humans.
Solar energy
Using the Sun’s light and heat either to heat water, or to generate electricity.
Solastalgia
Distress caused by environmental change.
Solutions
Climate change adaptation and mitigation
Species migration
Global warming is changing the ranges of animals and plants around the world with rising temperatures on land and sea increasingly forcing species to migrate to cooler climes, pushing disease-carrying insects into new areas, moving the pests that attack crops and shifting the pollinators that fertilise many of them.
SSPs Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) are climate change scenarios of projected socioeconomic global changes up to 2100.
STEM “Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths”
Storage
As the generation of electricity by many renewable energy sources is not flexible enough to respond to peak electricity usage, storage solutions are required.
Storm surges
The temporary increase in the height of the sea, above the level expected from the tides alone, due to extremely low air pressure and/or strong winds blowing the water inland.
Storms
The frequency of local occurrences of strong winds, rain, lightning and/ or snow can be affected by climate change.
Stranded assets
As the world transitions away from high-carbon activities, all technologies and investments that cannot be adapted to low-carbon and zero-emission modes could face stranding.
SUDS (Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems)
Approaches to manage surface water that take account of water quantity (flooding), water quality (pollution), biodiversity (wildlife and plants), and amenity. SUDS are drainage systems that are considered to be environmentally beneficial, causing minimal or no long-term detrimental damage.
Sustainability
Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
17 goals adopted by the United Nations in 2015 as a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that by 2030 all people enjoy peace and prosperity.
Systems thinking
The climate system is made up of five major components: the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the cryosphere, the land surface and the biosphere.
T
Technology/ innovation
Three innovation opportunities alone—direct air capture and storage, advanced batteries, and hydrogen electrolyzers—can deliver roughly 15 percent of cumulative emissions reductions between 2030 and 2050. The challenge is to quickly overcome barriers and to scale up transformative solutions to climate change so that the global economy can be decarbonized by 2050 and societies can be made resilient to impacts of climate change including more heatwaves, floods and droughts. One way to do this is through intelligent matchmaking and coalition building between institutions, companies and governments.
Teleconnections
Teleconnections are significant relationships or links between weather phenomena at widely separated locations on earth, which typically entail climate patterns that span thousands of miles.
Temperature/ global warming
Global warming is the long-term heating of Earth’s surface observed since the pre-industrial period due to human activities such as land use change and the combustion of fossil fuels.
Tidal/ wave power
Harnessing the kinetic energy of moving sea water to general electricity.
Tipping points
Hypothesized critical thresholds when global or regional climate changes rapidly from one stable state to another stable state. The tipping point event may be irreversible.
Transport
Has historically been responsible for a significant proportion of greenhouse gas emissions globally, as well as other environmental impacts. Climate change will impact transport in some areas.
Travel and tourism
Has an environmental impact, as well as being affected by climatic and environmental change.
Tree rings
Tree ring width is an indicator of annual tree growth, which may be affected by summer temperature and precipitation.
Trends
Persistent and long term changes in key variables such as atmospheric and oceanic temperature, ocean acidity, sea level, atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations and sea ice extent.
Tropical cyclones
Very large, spinning low pressure systems that develop over warm water. Wind speeds are over 120 km/ hr and usually cause substantial damage.
U
Confidence/ uncertainty
The IPCC reports use a standardised set of confidence statements. Weather forecasts now frequently come with an indicator of the probability of rain.
Understanding
Climate change science provides the information needed to understand and plan for climate change impacts
Uneven impacts
One of the most distinguishing features of climate change is its impact on all human beings on planet Earth. However, while every society is vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, this varies in severity across regions and communities and depends on socioeconomic and other local conditions. Differences in age, ethnicity, gender, geography and wealth can influence vulnerability to climate change impacts. Injustices like gender inequality, discrimination, marginalization and unequal distribution of resources among countries make certain individuals and groups more exposed to the impacts of climate change.
UNFCCC/ governance United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. A Convention signed by more than 150 countries in 1992. Its ultimate objective is the stabilisation of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.
Urban green infrastructure
Urban green infrastructure is a network of green spaces, water and other natural features within urban areas. A green infrastructure approach uses natural processes to deliver multiple functions, such as reducing the risk of flooding and cooling high urban temperatures. ”
Urban heat
An urban heat island is a town or city which is significantly warmer than its surrounding rural areas. The temperature difference is usually larger at night than during the day, and is most obvious when the wind is weak. One of the main causes of the urban heat island is the fact that there is little bare earth and vegetation in urban areas. This means that less energy is used up evaporating water, that less of the Sun’s energy is reflected and that more heat is stored by buildings and the ground in urban than in rural areas. The heat generated by heating, cooling, transport and other energy uses also contributes, particularly in winter, as does the complex three dimensional structure of the urban landscape.
Urbanisation
Cities are a key contributor to climate change and rapid urbanization is making people more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
V
Vector borne diseases
A vector is a living organism – like a tick or mosquito – that transmits an infectious agent from an infected animal to a human or another animal. There are three ways climate change affects vectors: More places will become suitable for vectors, warmer climates extend the disease transmission season and temperature change can affect the behaviours of vectors.
W
Water cycle
Climate change is causing parts of the water cycle to speed up as warming global temperatures increase the rate of evaporation worldwide.
Water security
The capacity of a population to safeguard sustainable access to adequate quantities of acceptable quality water for sustaining livelihoods, human well-being, and socio-economic development, for ensuring protection against water-borne pollution and water-related disasters, and for preserving ecosystems in a climate of peace and political stability.”
Water vapour (H2O) concentrations
The concentration of water vapour in the atmosphere is determined by the temperature of the atmosphere as well as the local availability of surface water from which water vapour can evaporate. Water vapour is a greenhouse gas. As global temperatures rise, the concentration of water vapour in the atmosphere rises, further contributing to global warming.
Weather
The state of the atmosphere (with regard to wind strength and direction, temperature, precipitation and pressure) at a specific time and place.
Weather buoys
Weather buoys, like other types of weather stations, measure parameters such as air temperature, wind speed, atmospheric pressure and wind direction. Since they lie in oceans and lakes, they also measure water temperature, wave height, and dominant wave period.
Weather stations
A selection of instruments which observe and record various elements of the weather
Well-being
Well-being is a positive state experienced by individuals and societies. Similar to health, it is a resource for daily life and is determined by social, economic and environmental conditions. Well-being encompasses quality of life and the ability of people and societies to contribute to the world with a sense of meaning and purpose.
Wild fires
An unplanned and uncontrolled fire that burns forest, peatland or bush and may extend to urban areas.
Wildlife impact
Rising temperatures affect habitat, food sources, access to water, breeding patterns and much more. Ecosystems may become uninhabitable for certain animals, forcing wildlife to migrate outside of their usual patterns in search of food and livable conditions, while causing other animals to become locally extinct. Climate change exacerbates other threats like habitat destruction, overexploitation of wildlife, competition and disease.
Wind
The wind is driven by the Sun, which heats the ground more in some places than others, ultimately leading to differences in atmospheric pressure which in turn drive the wind.
Wind power
Wind turbines, which can be on the land (on shore) or out at sea (off shore), use the power of the wind to drive electricity generators.
WMO World Meteorological Organisation
Written records
Such as ships’ log books and individuals weather records
WWF World Wide Fund for Nature
X
no items
Y
no items
Z
no items
Watch this short animation to learn about the causes and impacts of storm surges in the UK, as well as the expected impact of climate change on them.
At the bottom of the page, you can download a Knowledge Organiser to complement the animation.
With thanks to the students and staff at Boston College for their contribution to the animation.
Some ideas, data sources and guidance for students wishing to include weather measurements in their NEA or EPQ.
Updated November 2022
A guide to collecting weather data
https://www.rgs.org/CMSPages/GetFile.aspx?nodeguid=59f46632-ae51-4ea7-ab94-a0c537eb3c71&lang=en-GB
Passage of a depression
https://www.metlink.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/depression_wow_teacher_Eva.pdf
Data source:
Weather and Health/ Behaviour
- Classroom behaviour (https://www.metlink.org/resource/classroom-behaviour-and-the-weather/)
- Use of inhalers in schools
- Number of people off school with illness
- https://www.metlink.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Effect-of-Climate-Variability-on-School-Attendance.pdf
- https://journals.lww.com/epidem/Fulltext/2017/03000/Traffic_related_Air_Pollution_and_Attention_in.5.aspx
Data source: http://wow.metoffice.gov.uk
Urban Climates
Using Wow data to look at urban heat islands https://www.metlink.org/resource/using-wow-to-illustrate-the-urban-heat-island-effect/
Urban winds: fieldwork guidance can be found on https://www.metlink.org/fieldwork-resource/fieldwork-in-geography/
Urban temperature https://www.metlink.org/fieldwork-resource/urban-heat-island-introduction/
Data source: http://wow.metoffice.gov.uk
Community resilience to extreme weather
- Extreme weather memories. http://talkingjobs.net/modules/wmb/?ref=nm
- Tempest data base https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/geography/extreme-weather/search/
- Data source: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/climate/gcqrqyr80
Local microclimate
https://www.metlink.org/fieldwork-resource/using-usb-temperature-dataloggers/
https://www.rgs.org/schools/teaching-resources/quick-and-easy-ideas/
Data source: http://wow.metoffice.gov.uk
Factors affecting rainfall:
https://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/tuesday-wettest-day-of-week-suggests-new-analysis/
https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.2321
Orographic rainfall https://www.metlink.org/resource/orographic-relief-rainfall-and-the-foehn-effect/
Red Sky at Night
https://www.metlink.org/resource/red-sky-teachers/ with an introductory concept cartoon from the ASE
https://www.metlink.org/blog/folklore/weather-folklore/
Snow
https://www.metlink.org/blog/extreme-weather/when-will-it-snow/
Sky Colour
https://www.exploringoverland.com/constantapprentice/2021/8/10/making-a-cyanometer-to-measure-sky-moisture-through-color with https://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/interactive-map pollution forecast and pollen forecast http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/health/public/pollen-forecast
Weather and Flooding
Data source: National River Flow Archive http://nrfa.ceh.ac.uk/ and https://environment.data.gov.uk/hydrology/index.html#/landing
Sea level
http://www.coolgeography.co.uk/GCSE/AQA/Coastal%20Zone/Sea%20level%20rise/Sea%20level%20rise.htm
Land and Sea breezes, sea breeze front
Data source: http://wow.metoffice.gov.uk
Air Masses
https://earth.nullschool.net/
http://www1.wetter3.de/Archiv/archiv_ukmet.html
various links on https://www.metlink.org/teaching-resources/?_sft_topic=air-masses
including https://www.metlink.org/resource/pressure-and-rainfall/
Data source: http://wow.metoffice.gov.uk
General resources
https://www.metlink.org/fieldwork-resource/instruments-and-fieldwork/
https://www.rgs.org/schools/teaching-resources/key-stage-five/extreme-weather/
https://www.metlink.org/fieldwork/
https://www.rgs.org/schools/teaching-resources/a-student-guide-to-the-a-level-independent-investi/
https://www.field-studies-council.org/resources/16-18-geography/route-to-enquiry/
Climate change has increased heat waves (high confidence) and drought (medium confidence) on land, and doubled the probability of marine heatwaves around most of Africa.
Heat waves on land, in lakes and in the ocean will increase considerably in magnitude and duration with increasing global warming.
Most African countries will enter unprecedented high temperature climates earlier in this century than generally wealthier, higher latitude countries, emphasising the urgency of adaptation measures in Africa.
- The focus of these resources are to explore climate change and energy security in Africa.
- Hydro electric power has been identified as a more sustainable way for Africa to achieve energy security in the future.
- Throughout the continent of Africa there are already many hydroelectric power stations, with many more planned over the coming decades.
- Climate change could potentially impact upon these plans. These resources focus upon that relationship.
Africa: Climate Change Impact and Mitigation
Africa is one of the lowest contributors to global greenhouse gas emissions, yet key development sectors are already experiencing widespread losses and damages attributed to human-induced climate change.
Widespread negative impacts of 1.5-2°C of global warming are projected for Africa. These impacts are likely to be severe due to reduced food production, reduced economic growth, increased inequality and poverty, biodiversity loss, and increased human mortality.
Exposure to climate change in Africa is multi-dimensional. There are socioeconomic, political, and environmental factors which make people more vulnerable. Socioeconomically, Africans are disproportionately employed in climate-exposed sectors: 55-62% of the sub-Saharan workforce is employed in agriculture and 95% of cropland is rainfed. In decision-making, particularly in rural Africa, poor and female-headed households have less sway and face greater livelihood risks from climate hazards. Environmentally, in urban areas, growing informal settlements without basic services increase the vulnerability of large populations to climate hazards, especially women, children, and the elderly.
Climate adaptation across Africa is therefore crucial to lessen the impact of future warming, is generally cost-effective, and will provide social, economic, and environmental benefits to the vulnerable. However, the current finance available is far less than adaptation costs. Most adaption options are effective at present-day warming but their effectiveness for future warming is unknown.
Climate: Impact and projected risks
Most African countries will enter unprecedented high temperature climates earlier in this century than generally wealthier, higher latitude countries, emphasising the urgency of adaptation measures in Africa.
Both mean temperature and extreme temperature trends will increase across the continent, resulting in more heatwaves and drought. With above 1.5°C of global warming, drought frequency and duration will particularly increase over southern Africa. If 2°C global warming occurs there will be decreased precipitation in North Africa whilst any rise above 3°C of global warming will lead to drought duration in North Africa, the western Sahel, and southern Africa doubling from 2 to 4 months.
Bar north and southwestern Africa, rainfall events will also increase in frequency and intensity across Africa, at all levels of global warming.
Consequently, multiple African countries are facing compounding risks in the twenty-first century.
Hydrological variability and water scarcity will increase and will have a cascading impact on water supply and hydrological power production.
Climate change has already reduced economic growth across Africa, one estimate suggests gross domestic product (GDP) per capita for 1991–2010 in Africa was on average 13.6% lower than if climate change had not occurred.
Future warming will negatively affect food systems in Africa by shortening growing seasons and increasing water stress. With 1.5°C of global warming, declines are projected in suitable areas for coffee and tea in east Africa, for olives yields in north Africa, and for sorghum yields in west Africa.
Mortality and morbidity are expected to escalate as of tens of millions of Africans will be exposed to extreme weather and an increase in the range and transmission of infectious diseases.
Climate change is projected to increase migration. Africa’s rapidly growing cities will be hotspots of risks from climate change and climate-induced in-migration, which will amplify pre-existing stresses such as poverty, informality, social and economic exclusion, and governance.
Increasing temperatures are likely to cause drought-associated conflict risk.
Wildfire: Causes, Impacts and Responses
Wildfire is a natural and essential part of many forest, woodland and grassland ecosystems, killing pests, releasing plant seeds to sprout, thinning out small trees and serving other functions essential for ecosystem health. Excessive wildfire, however, can kill people, the smoke can cause breathing illnesses, destroy homes and damage ecosystems.
Anthropogenic climate change increases wildfire by exacerbating its three principal driving factors: heat (by drying out vegetation and accelerating burning), fuel and ignition. Non-climatic factors also contribute to wildfires—in tropical areas, fires are set intentionally to clear forest for agricultural fields and livestock pastures.
Urban areas and roads create ignition hazards. Governments in many temperate-zone countries implement policies to suppress fires, even natural ones, producing unnatural accumulations of fuel in the form of coarse woody debris and high densities of small trees. The fuel accumulations cause particularly severe fires that burn upwards into tree crowns.
Globally, 4.2 million km2 of land per year burned on average from 2002 to 2016, with the highest fire frequencies in the Amazon rainforest, deciduous forests and savannas in Africa and deciduous forests in northern Australia.
Across the western USA, increases in vegetation aridity due to higher temperatures from anthropogenic climate change doubled burned area from 1984 to 2015 over what would have burned due to non-climate factors including unnatural fuel accumulation from fire suppression, with the burned area attributed to climate change accounting for 49% of cumulative burned area.
Anthropogenic climate change doubled the severity of a southwest North American drought from 2000 to 2020 that has reduced soil moisture to its lowest levels since the 1500s, driving half of the increase in burned area. In British Columbia, Canada, the increased maximum temperatures due to anthropogenic climate change increased burned area in 2017 to its highest extent in the 1950–2017 record, seven to eleven times the area that would have burned without climate change.
In Alaska, USA, the high maximum temperatures and extremely low relative humidity due to anthropogenic climate change accounted for 33–60% of the probability of wildfire in 2015, when the area burned was the second highest in the 1940–2015 record.
In National Parks and other protected areas of Canada and the USA, climate factors (temperature, precipitation, relative humidity and evapotranspiration) accounted for 60% of burned area from local human and natural ignitions from 1984 to 2014, outweighing local human factors (population density, roads and built area).
In summary, field evidence shows that anthropogenic climate change has increased the area burned by wildfire above natural levels across western North America in the period 1984–2017, at Global Mean Surface Temperature increases of 0.6°C–0.9°C, increasing burned area up to 11 times in one extreme year and doubling it (over natural levels) in a 32-year period.
Regarding global terrestrial area as a whole, from 1900 to 2000, fire frequency increased on one-third of global land, mainly from burning for agricultural clearing in Africa, Asia and South America.
Where the global average burned area has decreased in the past two decades, higher correlations of rates of change in burning to human population density, cropland area and livestock density than to precipitation indicate that agricultural expansion and intensification were the main causes. The fire-reducing effect of reduced vegetation cover following expansion of agriculture and livestock herding can counteract the fire-increasing effect of the increased heat and drying associated with climate change.
The human influence on fire ignition can be seen through the decrease documented on holy days (Sundays and Fridays) and traditional religious days of rest. Overall, human land use exerts an influence on wildfire trends for global terrestrial area as a whole that can be stronger than climate change.
In the Amazon, deforestation for agricultural expansion and the degradation of forests adjacent to deforested areas cause wildfire in moist humid tropical forests not adapted to fire. Roads facilitate deforestation, fragmenting the rainforest and increasing the dryness and flammability of vegetation.
In the extreme fire year 2019, 85% of the area burned in the Amazon occurred in areas deforested in 2018. In the Amazon, deforestation exerts an influence on wildfire that can be stronger than climate change.
Overall, burned area has increased in the Amazon, Arctic, Australia and parts of Africa and Asia, consistent with, but not formally attributed to, anthropogenic climate change.
Deforestation, peat draining, agricultural expansion or abandonment, fire suppression and inter-decadal climate cycles exert a stronger influence than climate change on wildfire trends in numerous regions outside of North America.
The global increases in temperature from anthropogenic climate change have increased aridity and drought, lengthening the fire weather season (the annual period with a heat and aridity index greater than half of its annual range) on one-quarter of global vegetated area and increasing the average fire season length by one-fifth from 1979 to 2013.
Climate change has contributed to increases in the fire weather season or the probability of fire weather conditions in the Amazon, Australia, Canada, central Asia, East Africa and North America
In non-forest areas, the burned area correlates with high precipitation in the previous year, which can produce high grass fuel loads.
Globally, fire has contributed to biome shifts and tree mortality attributed to anthropogenic climate change. Through increased temperature and aridity, anthropogenic climate change has driven post-fire changes in plant regeneration and species composition in South Africa – in the fynbos vegetation of the Cape Floristic Region, South Africa, post-fire heat and drought and the legacy effects of exotic plant species reduced the regeneration of native plant species, decreasing species richness by 12% from 1966 to 2010
Continued climate change under high-emission scenarios that increase global temperature ~4°C by 2100 could increase global burned area by 50% to 70% and global mean fire frequency by ~30%. Lower emissions that would limit the global temperature increase to <2°C would reduce projected increases of global burned area to 30% to 35% and projected increases of fire frequency to ~20%.
Increased wildfire increases risks of tree mortality, biome shifts and carbon emissions as well as high risks from invasive species. Wildfire risks to people include death and destruction of their homes, respiratory illnesses from smoke, post-fire flooding from areas exposed by vegetation loss and degraded water quality due to increased sediment flow. Increased wildfire under continued climate change increases the probability of human exposure to fire and risks to public health.
Regions identified as being at a high risk of increased burned area, fire frequency and fire weather include: the Amazon, Mediterranean Europe, the Arctic tundra, Western Australia and the western USA. Moreover, increased fire, deforestation and drought, acting via vegetation–atmosphere feedbacks, increase the risk of extensive forest dieback and potential biome shifts of up to half of the Amazon rainforest to grassland, a tipping point that could release an amount of carbon that would substantially increase global emissions.
In the Arctic tundra, boreal forests and northern peatlands, including permafrost areas, climate change under the scenario of a 4°C temperature increase could triple the burned area in Canada, double the number of fires in Finland and double the burned area in Alaska. Thawing of Arctic permafrost due to wildfires could release 11–200 Gt Carbon which could substantially exacerbate climate change.
In Venezuela, Brazil and Guyana, Indigenous knowledge systems have led to a lower incidence of wildfires, reducing the risk of rising temperatures and droughts.
The Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area has a high concentration of plant species which are restricted to living in cool, wet climates and fire-free environments, but recent wildfires have burnt substantial stands that are unlikely to recover. Most of the area is managed as a wilderness zone and is currently carried out in a manner that allows natural processes to predominate. There has been a realisation that this ‘hands off’ approach will not be sufficient. After the wildfires in 2016 caused extensive damage, significant efforts and resources were spent trying to protect the remaining stands of pencil pine during the 2019 fires, using new approaches including the strategic application of long-term fire retardant and the installation of kilometres of sprinkler lines. However, there is concern that these interventions may have adverse effects if applied widely. Increasingly, there is an acknowledgment that the cessation of traditional fire use has led to changes in vegetation and there are calls to incorporate Aboriginal burning knowledge into fire management.
Wildfires pose a significant threat to electricity systems in dry conditions and arid regions. Solar PV generation is reduced by clouds and is less efficient under extreme heat, dust storms, and wildfires.
Severe impacts on railway infrastructure and operations can arise from the occurrence of temperatures below freezing, excess precipitation, storms and wildfires.
Adaptation for natural forests includes conservation, protection and restoration measures.
Restoring natural forests and drained peatlands and improving sustainability of managed forests generally enhances the resilience of carbon stocks and sinks.
In managed forests, adaptation options include sustainable forest management, diversifying and adjusting tree species compositions to build resilience, and managing increased risks from pests and diseases and wildfires.
Successful forest adaptation requires cooperation, inclusive decision making with local communities, and recognition of the inherent rights of indigenous people.
Ecosystem-based adaptation measures can reduce climatic risks to people, for example restoring natural vegetation cover and wildfire regimes can reduce risks to people from catastrophic fires.
A case study to illustrate the innovativeness of indigenous adaptation is the Bedouin pastoralists of Israel, where wildfires are a major cause of deforestation. Competing land use has reshaped the landscape with pine monocultures and cattle farming, reducing the availability of land suitable for herding goats the indigenous way, across the original landscape of shrubland or maquis (consisting mostly of oak and Pistacia). In addition, since 1950, plant protection legislation has decreased Bedouin forest pastoralism by defining indigenous black goats as an environmental threat. This has led to nature reserves where no human interference is allowed and shrubland regeneration, which is susceptible to wildfires.
In 2019, many severe wildfires occurred in Israel due to extreme heatwaves and, in response, plant protection legislation was repealed, allowing Bedouin pastoralists to graze their goats in these areas once more. The amount of combustible undergrowth subsequently decreased, reducing the risk for wildfire whilst also facilitating indigenous food sovereignty among the Bedouin.
Modelling of the interactions between climate-induced vegetation shifts, wildfire and human activities can provide keys to how people may be able to adapt to climate change.
Fire management plans and programmes are increasingly being developed, even in parts of Europe where wildfires are less common.
There is growing recognition of the need to shift fire management and suppression activities to co-exist with more fire on the landscape, particularly in North America. This includes widespread use of prescribed fire across landscapes to increase ecological and community-based resilience.
Climate-informed post-fire ecosystem recovery measures (e.g., strategic seeding, planting, natural regeneration), restoration of habitat connectivity and managing for carbon sequestration (e.g., soil conservation through erosion control, preservation of old growth forests, sustainable agroforestry) are critical to maximise long-term adaptation potential and reduce future risk through co-benefits with carbon mitigation. Prescribed fire and thinning approaches, including the use of indigenous practices, are receiving a new level of awareness.
Enhanced coordination between the health sector and fire suppression agencies can also reduce the health impacts of wildfire smoke via improving communication, weather forecasting, mapping, fire shelters and coordinating decision making.
All text and diagrams adapted from the WGII and WGIII reports of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/ and https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2
In this resource linked to COP27 in Egypt, geography students explore population growth, urbanisation and climate change.
Introduction/Motivation
The 2022 United Nations climate change conference (27th session of the Conference of Parties – COP27) will be held in Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt, starting on the 7th of November.
In the introduction video screened at the end of COP26 in Glasgow, Egypt celebrated its adaptations and mitigations to climate change. In this resource, students will explore population growth, urbanisation and the greenhouse gas emissions from the construction industry in Egypt.
Resources:
Learning Outcomes
- To understand what COP27 is
- To describe how the population of Egypt has grown and is projected to grow in the future
- To be able to interpret a population pyramid for Egypt and use that to explain Egypt’s changing population
- To explain how the construction industry has an impact on the climate and what steps can be taken to reduce that impact.
Notes for Person Delivering the Event
These resources are designed to be used in one session with year 6 (10/ 11 year old) students. Although they will support numeracy, literacy and various other aspects of the curriculum, they are designed to prepare students for secondary school rather than support the year 6 curriculum.
There are 6 suggested activities. Although they are designed to be run sequentially, you may choose to use only some of the activities, or to supplement them with your own ideas.
You may like to ask them to summarise their learning after each activity – this could be on post it notes on a cloud, or …
It should be possible to use these activities with any class size.
Many people, including Ellie Highwood, Cristina Charlton-Perez, Helen Johnson and Laila Gohar, have contributed to these resources.
1) The difference between weather and climate
Time: 30 minutes
You will need: Weather or Climate.pptx, one printed copy of Weather or Climate.docx for each pair of students and two dice per pair of students.
a) Show the images in the PowerPoint presentation and ask the students what each image shows and whether it is ‘weather’ or ‘climate’. Some may not have a clear answer!
b) Ask the students to get into pairs and give each pair one sheet and two dice.
c) Give them 5 minutes to roll both dice and record the combined score each time they roll as a tally chart.
d) Optional: ask them to turn this tally into a bar chart on the graph paper provided.
e) Can they predict what number they would roll next, if they had the chance?
f) Talk about how the graph shows the most likely score (the climate) but also the complete range of possible scores (the weather). What scores are ‘extreme’?
g) What happens to the numbers if the ‘1’ on one of the dice is changed into a ‘7’?
2) Climate change graph
Time: 30 minutes
You will need: 120 multicoloured lollipop sticks (at least 10 sticks each of 6 colours), Climate_Change_Picture.pptx, lollipop.xls, blue tack or similar
Note: this probably works best with groups of about 6 students working on each graph, with larger groups more teacher involvement will be required to keep the whole group engaged.
a) Before the event, mark on the middle of each lollipop stick. On each stick, write the year and the temperature for one of the data points in the spreadsheet (e.g. 1970 14.47), differentiating between global and CET data. Use a different coloured lollipop for each decade – so the 60s are all one colour etc.
b) You’ll also need to print a blank graph – the document supplied will work on A3 paper.
c) Divide the students into two groups. Within each group, divide out the lollipop sticks.
d) They should then work together to stick the sticks to the graphs in the right places, using the line in the middle of the stick as the marker.
e) Whilst doing so, they can look at years that mean something to them – the year they were born, their parents were born etc.
f) When they’ve finished, ask them to complete the table on the ppt
g) What does their graph show? What surprises them? What are the similarities and differences between the graphs?
h) Optional: take the sticks back off the graph and, within their groups, line the sticks up in temperature order with the coldest on the left and the warmest on the right. What does this show?
3) Climate change lucky dip
Time: 30 – 60 minutes
You will need: Lucky dip bag of things that have some link (vague or otherwise) to climate change. Each group takes an object, and then together works out what the connection is. After 10 mins groups swap
objects until all groups have seen all objects. (You could make a simple worksheet with a box for them to write their ideas for each item).
At the end – ask for feedback on each object and give them the “correct answer” – this can take a while – if you have 4 objects, this would make a 60 minute activity. I think they lose interest after 4 objects.
Example objects, depending on what you have available. Try and use objects which have both obvious and higher level ideas associated with them. Try and balance ‘doom and gloom’ with ‘opportunity and hope’ ideas.
Toy car: Emissions of greenhouse gases, also ozone and air pollution. Move talk
onto electric vehicles, nighttime charging etc.
Tree ring slice: Tree rings are an indirect way of measuring our climate etc, trees remove
carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, forestation and deforestation.
Cuddly cow: Methane – but you could also talk about the climate impact of beef etc. as
that is now much more talked about.
Butterfly brooch: Most of the kids talk about different species adapting to climate change (they do evolution in year 6) but you can also refer to chaos and internal links between different parts of the climate system
Mini trainer shoe: Some “air” trainers used to have SF6 in which is a really strong
greenhouse gas. You could also use baby shoes to represent babies and population growth. Also transportation – where were these shoes made?
Mirror: Geo-engineering and space mirrors – but can also explain albedo in this
way.
Solar powered toy: Renewable energy sources
Windmill: Renewable energy sources, changing weather patterns
Bag of rice: Methane production, plants as absorbers of CO2
Cuddly polar bear, puffin or other iconic animal threatened by climate change.
Sponge: Link to bleaching coral reefs and plankton as photosynthesisers equivalent to land plants.
Chocolate bar: Clearing of rainforests for production and threat to cocoa plants as
temperature rises.
Bottle of frozen water: Melting glaciers and ice caps; link to albedo and positive feedback;
hydrogen fuel
Piece of charred wood: Sustainable fuels; increased forest fires.
4) Weather risk game
Time: 30 minutes
You will need: money.docx printed in colour, WeatherRiskGame.pptx, 6 dice – large ones which the whole class can see work best. I got some foam ones very cheaply.
a) Before the event, mark the dice ‘p’ and 1-5. On the die marked 1, cross out or otherwise mark one side, on the die marked 2 cross out or otherwise mark two sides etc.
b) Use the ppt to guide the activity.
c) The students will need to get into 6 groups. Give each group one colour of money and ask them to cut it up. You should keep the ‘insured’ slips.
d) Each time you play, roll the P dice first. On the basis of which side it shows, the students should decide whether to insure their businesses or not (if a 6 is shown, then there is no chance of bad weather and presumably no-one will insure). If they choose to insure, they should pay you the appropriate sum in return for an ‘Insured’ slip. Then, roll the appropriate die (so if the P die gave a 3, next roll the die labelled 3). If a crossed-out side is rolled, then anyone who was not insured should pay you the appropriate sum.
e) Collect in all the insured slips and start again.
f) Continue until either one team, or all teams except one are out, depending on time.
5) Flooding, floating gardens and raft building
Time: 2.5 hours
You will need: Laptop and projector (for PowerPoint)
Whiteboard or flipchart for recording “purchases” by teams and competition results
5 or 6 small ziplock bags containing soil or sand and representing the crops of the garden.
Large and deep plastic box for use as “lake”
Towels
Access to water
Bundles of building materials e.g. plastic straws, lolly sticks, willow sticks, elastic bands, string, corks
Tape dispenser and scissors for each team
Additional materials for teams to “purchase” e.g. small plastic bottles with lids, plastic trays, bubble wrap, bags (anything else you can think of).
Topic: Flooding and climate change, developing world, adaptation.
Skills: teamwork, raft building, communication, budgeting, testing
Based on the Flooding Gardens activity from Practical Action.
Summary:
• Short powerpoint on flooding and impact of climate change. (15 mins)
• Set up problem of agriculture in Bangladesh (5 mins)
• Design and build of floating garden rafts according to specification in the power point (see also
below) – 40 mins including one opportunity for testing design
• Public competition – 20 mins
• Final few slides on real life application – 10 mins
Plus need a bit of time to set up in advance and definitely some to pack / clear up afterwards
Raft building part:
Each team needs to build a raft that could hold a floating garden. The winner is the team that builds a raft that can hold the most weight (small bags of soil) without the top surface of the raft being inundated with water. If using the budgeting version, secondary awards for cheap designs that work (although maybe not quite as well as the expensive ones).
Students are provided with a bag containing e.g. straws, willow sticks, elastic bands, sellotape dispenser, scissors, corks, lolly sticks. These represent “free” and available materials.
Also available are plastic bottles, plastic trays, bubble wrap and anything else you can think of – but these are kept at the front and have a price attached to them. The actual value you give them is arbitrary but they are supposed to represent things that are scarce in the communities we are considering. For example, plastic bottles might represent sealed oil drums, bubble wrap might be tarpaulins etc.
(Note, all materials can and should be recovered at the end of the session – the rafts are broken down and materials reused on other occasions).
With a year 6 group, you should be able to get them to discuss and draw out their design as a team first (maybe first 10 mins of building section), then send one person to get what they need (including paying – I haven’t given them a budget as such, just kept a record of what they have “spent”, but you could give each group a fixed budget if you wanted to (and then judge your winner differently).
6) Greenhouse Effect Bulldog
Time: 30 minutes
You will need: A playground. Chalk or similar. Hats or sashes (see below).
This playground game demonstrates the way Greenhouse gases return energy to the Earth’s surface – as well as allowing the students to run off some energy!
a) With chalk or similar, mark a Sun and an Earth at opposite ends of the school playground. If possible also draw a line across the playground, a third of the way between the Earth and the Sun.
b) Choose 2 students to be greenhouse gases – if possible give them a hat or sash to identify them.
Which greenhouse gases have they heard of? One could be water and the other carbon dioxide.
They are allowed to move only along the line you have drawn. Their role is to try and touch the other students as they run past but only when they are running from the Earth towards the Sun!
c) The other students are all ‘energy’ and start off by the Sun.
d) The ‘energy’ should run to the Earth and back again, repeatedly. If the ‘greenhouse gas’ students manage to touch them, then they have to run 10 times between the greenhouse gas line and the Earth before being allowed to return to the Sun.
e) After a few minutes of doing this, stop the students and increase the numbers of ‘greenhouse gas’ students – you could add a methane, or another water.
f) Again, let them play this for a while, then stop them and ask what has changed. They should notice that there is now more ‘energy’ trapped near the Earth.
g) You could increase the amount of greenhouse gas again and let them see what happens.
h) Finish by talking about how greenhouse gases are essential to maintaining our climate, but that increasing the amount of greenhouse gas leads to heating. You may need to talk a little bit about the different forms energy can take – light, heat etc.
