This short video from NASA discusses the role that salinity plays in Earth's climate and ocean circulation, focusing on the observations of the Aquarius satellite.

This Changing Planet video documents scientists' concerns regarding how melting Arctic sea ice will increase the amount of fresh water in the Beaufort Gyre, which could spill out into the Atlantic and cause major climate shifts in North America and Western Europe. The video includes interviews with scientists and a look at the basics of how scientists measure salinity in the ocean and how ocean circulation works in the Arctic.

Students are asked to make a general hypothesis about whether Atlantic hurricane have been changing over time in response to recent climate change. It is expected that at an introductory level with only the most basic background instruction, students will focus on numbers, locations, or intensities of hurricanes. Example hypotheses might be

The numbers of hurricanes are increasing (or decreasing)
Hurricanes are becoming more intense
Hurricanes are forming in new locations
Hurricane season is lengthening

They are then asked to develop more pointed questions that they can test. Some example questions for each hypothesis are given below:

Hypothesis 1 might lead to questions like "More hurricanes (or tropical storms) are forming each year" or "More hurricanes are striking land each year."
Hypothesis 2 might lead to questions such as "The maximum wind speed for hurricanes is increasing" or "The minimum barometric pressure is decreasing."
Hypothesis 3 might lead to questions like "Hurricanes are forming further north."
Hypothesis 4 might lead to questions such as "Hurricanes are forming earlier and later."

To answer these questions would require students to understand some background about hurricanes, like how many typically occur in the past (which leads to questions about data collection and observing hurricanes), how hurricane intensity is measured, or at what latitudes hurricanes typically form.

Then they are given a table or map data (derived from NOAA GIS data of hurricane tracks and intensity) to test their hypotheses.

The results of their inquiries and data collection will be shared with the class as parts of small groups initially, and will culminate as a small group presentation.

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This activity covers the role that the oceans may play in climate change and how climate change may affect the oceans. It is lesson 8 in a nine-lesson module Visualizing and Understanding the Science of Climate Change.

In this activity, students examine climate variability in the North Atlantic associated with the North Atlantic Oscillation (NOA) in a case study format.

This activity represents a culmination project for this unit by means of which students can assess whether the IPCC prediction of increased storminess as an outcome of global warming survives testing. For the previous three weeks students will have conducted several inquiry-based group activities designed to introduce and reinforce fundamental meteorology/climatology concepts. In this 2-day project, students access online AVHRR SST imagery, as well as tabulated numeric data regarding historical North American tropical cyclones, import data into Excel for interpretation and analysis, and submit two group reports.

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This activity is designed to introduce students to the way in which thermohaline circulation and the biological pump influence the distribution of nutrients, oxygen, carbon, and radiocarbon in the Atlantic vs. Pacific Oceans.

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This activity will help students to identify and analyze factors contributing to Earth's climate systems.

Provenance: Beverly Owens, Cleveland Early College High School
Reuse: This item is offered under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ You may reuse this item for non-commercial purposes as long as you provide attribution and offer any derivative works under a similar license.

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In this activity, students examine global climate model output and consider the potential impact of global warming on tropical cyclone initiation and evolution. As a follow-up, students read two short articles on the connection between hurricanes and global warming and discuss these articles in context of what they have learned from model output.

This video introduces viewers to oceanic thermohaline circulation - the system of global ocean currents that cycle warm and cold water across the planet.

This interactive online visualization allows the user to view a variety of weather patterns including temperature, wind, and wave action over time.

This 15-panel interactive from NOVA Online describes some of the factors (such as Earth's rotation and the sun's uneven heating of Earth's surface) contributing to the formation of the high-speed eastward flows of the jet streams, found near the top of the troposphere. These jet streams play a major role in guiding weather systems.

In this project students learn through lecture, video, and sketching about the Coriolis effect, the "Six-Cell Generalized Global Atmospheric Circulation Model", the shifting ITCZ, the Indian Monsoon, and its impact on the day-to-day lives of the people of India.
The outcomes for this assignment are aligned with course-specific outcomes articulated in the Minnesota Transfer Curriculum. They are:

Discuss/compare characteristics of diverse cultures and environments in the context of ocean science.
Explain the basic structure and function of the ocean realm, the impact of humans on it, and the impact of the ocean realm on humans.

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Students are presented with a scenario (problem) to recommend whether the Gulf Stream is responsible for keeping Europe warm and the potential effects if polar ice were to continue melting. The students work in small groups and discuss the problem and identify the issue. They then list everything they know about the issue and develop a problem statement. They then ask what they need to know to solve the problem and search the Internet data sites, etc., and analyze the information gathered. They complete the activity by preparing an individual report and PowerPoint presentation where they make a recommendation or other appropriate resolution of the problem based on the data, visualizations, and background information.

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In this role-playing activity, learners are presented with a scenario in which they determine whether the Gulf Stream is responsible for keeping northern Europe warm. They must also address the potential future of the Gulf Stream if polar ice were to continue melting. The students work in small groups to identify the issue, discuss the problem, and develop a problem statement. They are then asked what they need to know to solve the problem.

The NOAA Ocean Service Education lab requires students create and manipulate solutions simulating different ocean water characteristics in order to recognize that the effects of salinity and temperature are the drivers of thermohaline circulation.

In this activity, students examine the effects of hurricanes on sea surface temperature using NASA data. They examine authentic sea surface temperature data to explore how hurricanes extract heat energy from the ocean surface.

In essence, this is an opportunity for students to practice calculating trends with uncertainties to draw conclusions about whether or not there is a trend in hurricane intensity. It follows closely with the IPCC AR4 findings, and is guided so that students will know exactly what they have to do - step by step. Please see the attached document for the bulk of the activity. There are some additional instructor's notes that give a little more background on the concepts involved with confidence intervals and trends. There is also an excel file with all of the necessary data already tabulated for the exercise - so you don't need to go find it yourself unless you want to.

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In Part A of this activity, students will learn about how sea ice forms and influences ocean currents around the globe. In Part B, they will look at how sea ice thickness changes over time. Finally, in Part C, students will use NSIDC sea ice index data to explore changes in sea ice extent on multiple time scales including months, years, and decades.

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In Part A:Students are introduced to the global circulation patterns of the atmosphere and the oceans, and investigate how those circulation patterns might influence their local region.
In Part B: Students study surface ocean currents and then predict the pathway of a floating object dropped into the ocean at a particular point, maybe one closest to their own region. Then, using a computer model of ocean currents, they test their predictions.

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