Probabilities, Uncertainties and Units Used to Quantify Climate Change

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In this exercise learners use statistics (T-test using Excel) to analyze an authentic dataset from Lake Mendota in Madison, WI that spans the last 150 years to explore ice on/ice off dates. In addition, students are asked to investigate the IPCC Likelihood Scale and apply it to their statistical results.

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.

Consider limitations of data analysis (e.g., measurement error, sample selection) when analyzing and interpreting data.

Ask questions to determine relationships, including quantitative relationships, between independent and dependent variables.

Make a quantitative and/or qualitative claim regarding the relationship between dependent and independent variables.

Use simple limit cases to test mathematical expressions, computer programs, algorithms, or simulations of a process or system to see if a model “makes sense” by comparing the outcomes with what is known about the real world.

Develop and/or use a model (including mathematical and computational) to generate data to support explanations, predict phenomena, analyze systems, and/or solve problems.

Compare, integrate and evaluate sources of information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words in order to address a scientific question or solve a problem.

Criteria and constraints also include satisfying any requirements set by society, such as taking issues of risk mitigation into account, and they should be quantified to the extent possible and stated in such a way that one can tell if a given design meets them.

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.

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 significance of a phenomenon is dependent on the scale, proportion, and quantity at which it occurs.

Change and rates of change can be quantified and modeled over very short or very long periods of time. Some system changes are irreversible.

Classifications or explanations used at one scale may fail or need revision when information from smaller or larger scales is introduced; thus requiring improved investigations and experiments.

Mathematical representations are needed to identify some patterns.

Probabilities, Uncertainties and Units Used to Quantify Climate Change

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Science and Engineering Practices

Disciplinary Core Ideas

Crosscutting Concepts