Climate change: How do we know?

Notes from our reviewers

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• Teaching Tips
  Visualization could be used as an motivational introduction to the main cause of climate change, namely CO2 emissions. Other versions of this exist, but this high quality graphic has "added value" with additional information on the evidence for human impacts and sources to relevant data. This graphic/image could also be used to discuss the importance of time series data and the nature of science. With a focus on the evidence that human activities are the reason for the recent increase in CO2, the webpage also includes summaries of the evidence and observations of recent change, plus links to the sources of the information.
• About the Science
  A static visualization demonstrating evidence that atmospheric CO2 has increased since the Industrial Revolution. The page provides the key sources of data and information contained on the page with a brief explanation of the graphic. CO2 concentrations in ice cores have been measured back 800,000 years as of 2008 but still show the same pattern. Comment from expert scientist: The subject is discussed in a scientifically valid and clear way.
• About the Pedagogy
  Static image on CO2 increases is a compelling illustration. This image/illustration summarizes climate fluctuations over the past 400,000 years. Students could be encouraged to go to the cited references and go beyond the image to discuss the significance of the increase being human induced.
• Technical Details/Ease of Use
  The image can be saved to the desktop or viewed online, which would provide the ability to research the additional resources and for students to gather more information independently.