Earth Exploration Toolbook Chapter: Exploring Regional Differences in Climate Change

: In this activity, users download and graph modeled climate data to explore variability in climate change. Most people know that climate changes are predicted over the next hundred years, but they may not be aware that these changes are likely to vary from region to region. Using data from the University of New Hampshire’s Earth Science Information Partner, a digital library of Earth Science data, users will obtain annual predictions for minimum temperature, maximum temperature, precipitation, and solar radiation for each of these 5 states: New York, Georgia, Colorado, Minnesota, and California. Data will span the years 2000 through 2100. Users will import the data into Excel and analyze it to see what, if any, regional variability exists. Finally, they will download data for their own state, compare these results with the results from the other 5 states and use their results to answer questions related to climate change. Educational levels: High school, Undergraduate lower division, Undergraduate upper division, Middle school