This activity is one of a series in the collection, The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change activities.
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How much do you know about the frozen poles of our home planet?
Because it recognizes the importance of U.S. coastal areas to the nation's economy, the U.S. National Ocean Service has formed a task force that is studying the trends and impacts of hurricanes on coastal regions. They have invited your students to participate.
Explore using units in calculations with the Leaf Area Index (LAI). LAI is a ratio that describes the number of square meters of leaves per square meter of available land surface. Because of the units in the ratio, it is dimensionless.
Explore using units for calculations with Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). NDVI is a ratio of different light wavelength reflectance which can be used to map the density of green vegetation.
These six graphs show Ocean Chlorophyll Concentrations from 1998 - 2018 in a variety of locations: East Bering Sea, Gulf of Alaska, California Coast, Southeastern US/Gulf of Mexico, Northeastern US and the Scotian Shelf, and the Hawaiian Islands.
In this mini lesson, students analyze a bar graph showing the relative forcings from natural and human factors that affect Earth's climate. They use information from this graph to assess the relative importance of these factors.
Students identify patterns and describe the relationship between chlorophyll concentration and incoming shortwave radiation.