Students differentiate between data sets of monthly shortwave radiation and monthly cloud coverage to discover a relationship between radiation and clouds by answering analysis questions.

Students will investigate the role of clouds and their contribution (if any) to global warming. Working in cooperative groups, students will make a claim about the future role clouds will play in Earth’s Energy Budget if temperatures continue to increase.

Ryan Turner says "My career has focused on software and software is ubiquitous, so I have been involved in many different projects. There is a lot of flexibility with software. I’ve worked on projects ranging from real-time displays of sounding rocket trajectories to enterprise messaging software tools for spacecraft operations centers." Read about the role of mentorship in his career.

This content has been moved. You can find it under Exploring Sky Color and Visibility (Interactive Models).

Students review a visualization showing a global view of the top-of-atmosphere longwave radiation from January 26 and 27, 2012. They review the supporting text and analyze the data in the visualization to answer questions.

In this lesson, students will explore the effect of aerosols on sky color and visibility by using an interactive virtual model. 

In this lesson, students will explore the effect of aerosols on sky color and visibility by using an interactive virtual model. 

This lesson is designed to help students analyze the interaction between different cloud heights and Earth's incoming and outgoing energy. 

Students analyze diagrams showing the effects of clouds on Earth’s Radiation and answer the questions that follow. This mini lesson is designed to help students analyze the interaction between clouds and Earth's incoming and outgoing energy. 

This activity will help students better understand and practice estimating percent cloud cover.