Ice Cores

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

• 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)

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

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

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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.