Historical Climate

Construct a scientific explanation based on evidence from rock strata for how the geologic time scale is used to organize Earth's 4.6-billion-year-old history.

Ask questions to clarify evidence of the factors that have caused the rise in global temperatures over the past century.

Analyze and interpret data for patterns in the fossil record that document the existence, diversity, extinction, and change of life forms throughout the history of life on Earth under the assumption that natural laws operate today as in the past.

• The solar system consists of the sun and a collection of objects, including planets, their moons, and asteroids that are held in orbit around the sun by its gravitational pull on them.
• This model of the solar system can explain eclipses of the sun and the moon. Earth’s spin axis is fixed in direction over the short-term but tilted relative to its orbit around the sun. The seasons are a result of that tilt and are caused by the differential intensity of sunlight on different areas of Earth across the year.
• The solar system appears to have formed from a disk of dust and gas, drawn together by gravity.

• The geologic time scale interpreted from rock strata provides a way to organize Earth’s history. Analyses of rock strata and the fossil record provide only relative dates, not an absolute scale.
• Tectonic processes continually generate new ocean sea floor at ridges and destroy old sea floor at trenches. (HS.ESS1.C GBE)

• All Earth processes are the result of energy flowing and matter cycling within and among the planet’s systems. This energy is derived from the sun and Earth’s hot interior. The energy that flows and matter that cycles produce chemical and physical changes in Earth’s materials and living organisms.
• The planet’s systems interact over scales that range from microscopic to global in size, and they operate over fractions of a second to billions of years. These interactions have shaped Earth’s history and will determine its future.

• Weather and climate are influenced by interactions involving sunlight, the ocean, the atmosphere, ice, landforms, and living things. These interactions vary with latitude, altitude, and local and regional geography, all of which can affect oceanic and atmospheric flow patterns.
• Because these patterns are so complex, weather can only be predicted probabilistically.
• The ocean exerts a major influence on weather and climate by absorbing energy from the sun, releasing it over time, and globally redistributing it through ocean currents.

Human activities, such as the release of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, are major factors in the current rise in Earth’s mean surface temperature (global warming). Reducing the level of climate change and reducing human vulnerability to whatever climate changes do occur depend on the understanding of climate science, engineering capabilities, and other kinds of knowledge, such as understanding of human behavior and on applying that knowledge wisely in decisions and activities.

• The collection of fossils and their placement in chronological order (e.g., through the location of the sedimentary layers in which they are found or through radioactive dating) is known as the fossil record. It documents the existence, diversity, extinction, and change of many life forms throughout the history of life on Earth.
• Anatomical similarities and differences between various organisms living today and between them and organisms in the fossil record, enable the reconstruction of evolutionary history and the inference of lines of evolutionary descent.
• Comparison of the embryological development of different species also reveals similarities that show relationships not evident in the fully-formed anatomy.

• Analyze and interpret data to determine similarities and differences in findings.
• Analyze and interpret data to provide evidence for phenomena.
• Analyze displays of data to identify linear and nonlinear relationships.
• Construct and interpret graphical displays of data to identify linear and nonlinear relationships.

• Construct a scientific explanation based on valid and reliable evidence obtained from sources (including the students’ own experiments) and the assumption that theories and laws that describe the natural world operate today as they did in the past and will continue to do so in the future.
• Construct a scientific explanation based on valid and reliable evidence obtained from sources (including the students’ own experiments) and the assumption that theories and laws that describe nature operate today as they did in the past and will continue to do so in the future.
• Construct an explanation that includes qualitative or quantitative relationships between variables that predict phenomena.
• Apply scientific ideas to construct an explanation for real-world phenomena, examples, or events.
• Construct an explanation that includes qualitative or quantitative relationships between variables that describe phenomena.
• Undertake a design project, engaging in the design cycle, to construct and/or implement a solution that meets specific design criteria and constraints.
• Apply scientific ideas or principles to design, construct, and test a design of an object, tool, process or system.

• Patterns can be used to identify cause-and-effect relationships.
• Patterns in rates of change and other numerical relationships can provide information about natural systems.
• Graphs, charts, and images can be used to identify patterns in data.
• Macroscopic patterns are related to the nature of microscopic and atomic-level structure.

• Cause and effect relationships may be used to predict phenomena in natural or designed systems.
• Relationships can be classified as causal or correlational, and correlation does not necessarily imply causation.
• Phenomena may have more than one cause, and some cause and effect relationships in systems can only be described using probability.

• Time, space, and energy phenomena can be observed at various scales using models to study systems that are too large or too small.
• Phenomena that can be observed at one scale may not be observable at another scale.
• Proportional relationships (e.g. speed as the ratio of distance traveled to time taken) among different types of quantities provide information about the magnitude of properties and processes.

• Models can be used to represent systems and their interactions—such as inputs, processes and outputs—and energy, matter, and information flows within systems.
• Systems may interact with other systems; they may have sub-systems and be a part of larger complex systems.

• Explanations of stability and change in natural or designed systems can be constructed by examining the changes over time and processes at different scales, including the atomic scale.
• Stability might be disturbed either by sudden events or gradual changes that accumulate over time.
• Small changes in one part of a system might cause large changes in another part.
• Explanations of stability and change in natural or designed systems can be constructed by examining the changes over time and forces at different scales.

Analyze geoscience data to make the claim that one change to Earth's surface can create feedbacks that cause changes to other Earth systems.

Use a model to describe how variations in the flow of energy into and out of Earth’s systems result in changes in climate.

Construct an argument based on evidence about the simultaneous coevolution of Earth’s systems and life on Earth.

Analyze geoscience data and the results from global climate models to make an evidence-based forecast of the current rate of global or regional climate change and associated future impacts to Earth's systems.

• Kepler’s laws describe common features of the motions of orbiting objects, including their elliptical paths around the sun. Orbits may change due to the gravitational effects from, or collisions with, other objects in the solar system.
• Cyclical changes in the shape of Earth’s orbit around the sun, together with changes in the tilt of the planet’s axis of rotation, both occurring over hundreds of thousands of years, have altered the intensity and distribution of sunlight falling on the earth. These phenomena cause a cycle of ice ages and other gradual climate changes.

• Continental rocks, which can be older than 4 billion years, are generally much older than the rocks of the ocean floor, which are less than 200 million years old.
• Although active geologic processes, such as plate tectonics and erosion, have destroyed or altered most of the very early rock record on Earth, other objects in the solar system, such as lunar rocks, asteroids, and meteorites, have changed little over billions of years. Studying these objects can provide information about Earth’s formation and early history.

• Earth’s systems, being dynamic and interacting, cause feedback effects that can increase or decrease the original changes.
• Evidence from deep probes and seismic waves, reconstructions of historical changes in Earth’s surface and its magnetic field, and an understanding of physical and chemical processes lead to a model of Earth with a hot but solid inner core, a liquid outer core, a solid mantle and crust. Motions of the mantle and its plates occur primarily through thermal convection, which involves the cycling of matter due to the outward flow of energy from Earth’s interior and gravitational movement of denser materials toward the interior.
• The geological record shows that changes to global and regional climate can be caused by interactions among changes in the sun’s energy output or Earth’s orbit, tectonic events, ocean circulation, volcanic activity, glaciers, vegetation, and human activities. These changes can occur on a variety of time scales from sudden (e.g., volcanic ash clouds) to intermediate (ice ages) to very long-term tectonic cycles.

• The foundation for Earth’s global climate systems is the electromagnetic radiation from the sun, as well as its reflection, absorption, storage, and redistribution among the atmosphere, ocean, and land systems, and this energy’s re-radiation into space.
• Gradual atmospheric changes were due to plants and other organisms that captured carbon dioxide and released oxygen.
• Changes in the atmosphere due to human activity have increased carbon dioxide concentrations and thus affect climate.
• Current models predict that, although future regional climate changes will be complex and varied, average global temperatures will continue to rise. The outcomes predicted by global climate models strongly depend on the amounts of human-generated greenhouse gases added to the atmosphere each year and by the ways in which these gases are absorbed by the ocean and biosphere.

The many dynamic and delicate feedbacks between the biosphere and other Earth systems cause a continual co-evolution of Earth’s surface and the life that exists on it.

• Though the magnitudes of human impacts are greater than they have ever been, so too are human abilities to model, predict, and manage current and future impacts.
• Through computer simulations and other studies, important discoveries are still being made about how the ocean, the atmosphere, and the biosphere interact and are modified in response to human activities.

Genetic information, like the fossil record, provides evidence of evolution. DNA sequences vary among species, but there are many overlaps; in fact, the ongoing branching that produces multiple lines of descent can be inferred by comparing the DNA sequences of different organisms. Such information is also derivable from the similarities and differences in amino acid sequences and from anatomical and embryological evidence.

• Analyze data using tools, technologies, and/or models (e.g., computational, mathematical) in order to make valid and reliable scientific claims or determine an optimal design solution.
• Apply concepts of statistics and probability (including determining function fits to data, slope, intercept, and correlation coefficient for linear fits) to scientific and engineering questions and problems, using digital tools when feasible.

• Apply scientific reasoning to link evidence to the claims to assess the extent to which the reasoning and data support the explanation or conclusion.
• Construct and revise an explanation based on valid and reliable evidence obtained from a variety of sources (including students’ own investigations, models, theories, simulations, peer review) and the assumption that theories and laws that describe the natural world operate today as they did in the past and will continue to do so in the future.
• Apply scientific principles and evidence to provide an explanation of phenomena and solve design problems, taking into account possible unanticipated effects.
• Apply scientific ideas to solve a design problem, taking into account possible unanticipated effects.
• Design, evaluate, and/or refine a solution to a complex real-world problem, based on scientific knowledge, student-generated sources of evidence, prioritized criteria, and tradeoff considerations.

• Empirical evidence is needed to identify patterns.
• Different patterns may be observed at each of the scales at which a system is studied and can provide evidence for causality in explanations of phenomena.

• Empirical evidence is required to differentiate between cause and correlation and make claims about specific causes and effects.
• Systems can be designed to cause a desired effect.
• Cause and effect relationships can be suggested and predicted for complex natural and human designed systems by examining what is known about smaller scale mechanisms within the system.

• The significance of a phenomenon is dependent on the scale, proportion, and quantity at which it occurs.
• Algebraic thinking is used to examine scientific data and predict the effect of a change in one variable on another (e.g., linear growth vs. exponential growth).
• Using the concept of orders of magnitude allows one to understand how a model at one scale relates to a model at another scale.

• When investigating or describing a system, the boundaries and initial conditions of the system need to be defined and their inputs and outputs analyzed and described using models.
• Models (e.g., physical, mathematical, computer models) can be used to simulate systems and interactions—including energy, matter, and information flows— within and between systems at different scales.
• Models can be used to predict the behavior of a system, but these predictions have limited precision and reliability due to the assumptions and approximations inherent in models.

• Much of science deals with constructing explanations of how things change and how they remain stable.
• Change and rates of change can be quantified and modeled over very short or very long periods of time. Some system changes are irreversible.
• Feedback (negative or positive) can stabilize or destabilize a system.
• Systems can be designed for greater or lesser stability.