Guide to understanding the essential principles of Earth’s climate system and the options to address human-caused climate change

In this 60-minute interactive demonstration, students use ice blocks and heat lamps to model what will happen to coastlines around the world as glaciers melt. They explore why glaciers are melting as a consequence of global warming and how human activity has added to the amount of warming.

There have been plenty of episodes in this season's La Niña Watch. Our blogger recaps what's happened so far and what we can expect in the upcoming months.

This video segment from 'Earth: The Operators' Manual' explores how we know that today's increased levels of CO2 are caused by humans burning fossil fuels and not by some natural process, such as volcanic out-gassing. Climate scientist Richard Alley provides a detailed step-by-step explanation that examines the physics and chemistry of different "flavors," or isotopes, of carbon in Earth's atmosphere.

The video offers a simple and easy-to-understand overview of climate change. It poses basic questions such as 'What is it?' and 'How will it effect us?' and effectively answers those questions.

This is a very simple but effective lesson that engages students with drawing a map of their local environment, then annotating their map with environmental changes they've observed. The activity taps into higher order thinking because students are synthesizing physical, cultural, environmental, and personal factors and expressing them in a graphical format. The goal of this assignment is threefold: 1) Reflect on the connection between social and ecological parts of the earth system that we observe in our own lives, 2) Gain experience with mapping change and using maps for sharing both data and personal stories of climate change, and 3) Provide a starting point for gauging our collective experience thinking about climate change.

These graphs show carbon dioxide measurements at the Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii. The graphs display recent measurements as well as historical long term measurements. The related website summarizes in graphs the recent monthly CO2, the full CO2 Record, the annual Mean CO2 Growth Rate, and gives links to detailed CO2 data for this location, which is one of the most important CO2 tracking sites in the world.

This video focuses on the science of climate change and its impacts on wildlife on land and in the sea, and their habitats in the U.S. There are short sections on walruses, coral reefs, migrating birds and their breeding grounds, freshwater fish, bees, etc. Video concludes with some discussion about solutions, including reduce/recycle/reuse, energy conservation, backyard habitats, and citizen scientists.

Three tropical systems brought heavy rain and wind to the U.S. and its territories in August; it was the fourth-warmest summer on record for the contiguous U.S., and many cities were gripped by record heat.

Researchers from NOAA have produced a new online dashboard on the National Marine Ecosystem Status website that shows how ocean acidification is impacting eleven different marine ecosystems in the United States.