Students watch a NOVA PBS video about the different effects of clouds on climate and Earth's energy budget. Then they answer questions and brainstorm to complete a flow chart of events that might occur if the percentage of absorbing clouds increases.
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This lesson is designed to help students analyze the interaction between different cloud heights and Earth's incoming and outgoing energy.
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.
In this activity, you will use an inexpensive spectrophotometer* to test how light at different visible wavelengths (blue, green, red) is transmitted, or absorbed, through four different colored water samples.
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.
Students watch a video and answer questions on Dr. Patrick Taylor (Atmospheric Scientist, NASA Langley Research Center) as he discusses the study of clouds and Earth's energy budget by analyzing data from Low Earth Orbit satellites.
This activity invites students to model and observe the effect of melting ice sheets (from land) on sea level and the difference between the effect of melting sea-ice to that of melting land ice on sea level.
Students will analyze a pie chart (circle graph) showing the distribution of different parts of the Earth system's absorption and reflection of energy.
Students will analyze a graph showing the amounts of peak energy received at local noon each day over the year changes with different latitudes.
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.