Part One, Climate Science, looked at the science behind understanding and modeling climate change. The lessons tried to help students understand how scientists are working to make predictions, how they try to account for the possibility of error, how they use different kinds of data in models, and how it is important to use data to understand trends when there is significant year to year variability.

None the less, the vast majority of scientists, and the bulk of the data all support the idea that climate is changing, and that human activity is part of the cause.

The NASA video, The Temperature Puzzle puts the data in context. The NOAA PowerPoint presented to the US Congress in 2009 summarized the best available data and concluded that Global Warming is Unequivocal. These resources were used in Part 1, Lesson 6 and are included in Other Materials for this lesson on the MEECS Climate Change Resource DVD.

This component, entitled Impacts of Climate Change in the Great Lakes, will be more about the Great Lakes region; about what will happen and what the consequences are. It will start with the indicators of a warming, changing climate, and the range of predictions about the future, and will focus on the consequences of changing climate for Michigan and the Great Lakes region. A key resource is the GLISA video which can be split into three segments. ‘What has Happened’ reviews the data on climate change which has already occurred. ‘Where Are We Heading Globally’ discusses the predicted changes over the next 100 years or so. And ‘What Are We Predicting Regionally’ talks about impacts in the Great Lakes region.

Throughout the Impacts of Climate Change in the Great Lakes lessons we will be discussing:

Predictability - What can we predict, and what are the limits to predictability?

Consequences – What are some of the possible consequences of climate change?

Variability – How can we handle extreme events?

Mitigation – What can be done to minimize the amount of undesirable change?

Adaptation – How can people adapt to the changes which we think are coming?

Vulnerability – What are the situations which are most susceptible to negative impacts from climate change?

Sustainability – What is the meaning of the term sustainability in an environment characterized by changes beyond our control?

Note: A series of up-to-date videos from NASA, called Climate Change, Lines of Evidence, can be used to either teach or review climate science concepts. Total time is 26 minutes. A summary of the 7 videos and the connections to the lessons in this unit is provided as a Teacher Resource. These are available from: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/blogs/earthmatters/2012/06/29/national-researchcouncil-video-series-summarizes-the-stateof-climate-science-research/?src=eoa-blogs