The Modern Atmospheric C02 Record

Robert McCay, Clark College, Starting Point Collection, SERC

In this activity, students compare carbon dioxide data from Mauna Loa Observatory, Barrow, Alaska, and the South Pole over the past 40 years. Students use the data to learn about what causes short-term and long-term changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide. This activity makes extensive use of Excel.

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Notes from our reviewers

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Smaller segments of this activity along with individual images or Quicktime animations could be used for interactive lecture discussion. Introducing basic ideas in class before the assignment will help students get started. Questions are provided at the completion of this activity that facilitate a classroom discussion. Based on IPCC 2001, it should be updated to current assessment (available at: [http://www.ipcc.ch/]). Additional data available at [http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/dv/data/index.php]
The activity makes use of real data from Mauna Loa, South Pole, and Barrow, AK. Data set provided ends in 2002 but additional data can be downloaded from the Web (links provided to these data). If data set is not updated to include years since 2002, the activity still demonstrates the same scientific process and concepts, but adding more recent data is encouraged. Comments from expert scientist: The is a lab activity which is aimed at undergraduate students at the university level. It teaches them how to process data as well as synthesize it and draw conclusions by asking specific scientific questions. Resource has not been updated since 2007.
The data on the step-by-step instructions for tasks 7 and 8 refer to the IPCC 2001 report, so instructor may want to update these to include data from a more recent report (available at: [http://www.ipcc.ch/]). This is not necessary, as the concepts remain the same, but may be useful to make it more pertinent to students since the data is more up to date. The data set goes to 2002, but more recent data can be found online and added to the Excel sheet (links provided to these data on the activity sheet). For students unfamiliar with Excel, a link to an Excel tutorial is provided. The Reference section provides a list of good resources for further exploration beyond the activity (including animations). Comparing and contrasting data sets and data models is good; students really have to think when looking at multiple emission scenarios and trying to ascertain what causes differences and what could be extrapolated for 2100.