Course:EOSC595 Climate/Projects

This page is meant to host the results of our discussions. It is organized by topic, but we can move it to chronological order later, or make sub-page articles.

The IPCC report will be accessible here (published early August 2021):

https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-working-group-i/

1: Framing, context, methods (Framing of the physical science information relevant for mitigation, adaptation, and risk assessment)

Figure 1: A picture of Vancouver, split into 4 scenes by Figure SPM.4a from the IPCC WG1's Climate Change 2021 The Physical Science Basis: Summary For Policy Makers. The plot shows annual CO2 emissions from 2015 to 2100 under several Shared Socioeconomic Pathway climate change scenarios. As CO2 emissions get higher, the scenes portrayed get worse.

Figure 2. A short description of the Shared Socio-economic Pathway (SSP) scenarios based on the definitions given by the IPCC WG1 sixth assesment report.

Week 6 - Lualawi Mareshet Admasu and Nealan Gerrebos. Chapters 1.6.1.1, 1.6.1.2, 1.6.2, 1.6.3 and 4.2.4.

Target Audience: In this outreach piece, we aim to communicate the possible socio-economic pathways and their implication for future climate. The target audience of this outreach is the majority of the public group that does not hold any strong belief regarding climate change - people who won't disregard what scientists have to say, but don't necessarily see the urgency or feel that climate change will impact them. We believe that this "middle-ground" group has a potential to be swayed if presented with the relevant information without any political undertone.

Main Message: The main message of this outreach is that there are several possible pathways that we can take with regards to climate change and each one will lead us to a significantly different world by the end of the century. Therefore, by choosing to act on climate change today, we can shape the future of our world. We want to stress on the fact that it is not to late to select even the most sustainable pathway today. This would mainly serve as an alternative to the challenge of being considered an alarmist. This doesn’t mean we don’t provide the known possible impacts of climate change in a warm world, however we phrase the message not as an ominous prophecy but a hopeful one.

Figure 3. Visualization of the increase in intensity and frequency of extreme events at different warming levels based on the IPCC WG1 summary for policy makers Figure SPM.6

Method: Our choice of platform to communicate this work is social media. We aim to run a short term advertisement that reaches at least a few thousand people in a target area. In this way, we will make sure that the target audience with little exposure to climate science has the opportunity to consider and think about the issue, its severity and what can be done to avoid it. It is also worth noting that such an audience constitutes voters that have the power to pick and choose policy makers (after the discussion in Week 2 of semester 2, it seems like a good idea to put some of these pieces up in the climate section of the museum as well). Although this piece may not be enough to change the minds of voters, we think it would introduce some people to the issue in general and nudge them towards exploring it more. The outreach piece itself is composed of infographic figures that represent the different socioeconomic and climate scenarios, their description and possible impacts in the future. Figures 1, 2 and 3.

2: Changing state of the climate system (radiative forcing, observations of the global mean)

Eva Gnegy and Lilianne Callahan

3: Human influence on the climate system

Climate models are becoming more powerful

Target Audience: Since comics are a popular style of internet meme, the target audience is people on various climate change subreddits and Facebook pages. The idea is that these can be thought provoking or conversation-starting for those who don’t believe in climate change and can be spread around more by those that do. Comics, and memes in general, spread much quicker than other sources of information, such as news articles, as they are a source of comedy that can be sent in one text and read in a few seconds.

Main Message:

Comic 1, Climate models are becoming more powerful

As more scientists combine efforts to predict the effects of climate change, they have been able to do more explicit attribution studies. Not only can they not say with certainty that humans are causing climate change, but they are also starting to be able to pinpoint which regional emissions might have caused specific weather events using spatially high-resolution models.

Comic 2, Humans are causing the climate to change

Humans are causing the climate to change

The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) made headlines last year when it released its 6th report that attributes climate change to anthropogenic (human-caused) warming. This means that our CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions from oil, gas, and coal are heating up the atmosphere, modifying the global water cycle, and making dry places drier and wet places wetter. This has manifested as drought-fueled wildfires in western North America, while leaders of rich, colonialist countries like the US are not taking any real action and continuing to allow elections to be bought by the same corporations doing the damage.

Climate models use energy

Comic 3, Climate models use energy

Extensive climate models used by climate scientists to predict what the world might look like 100 years into the future based on various emissions scenarios are extremely expensive, both computationally and financially. If people in power would heed the warning and implement the necessary changes to infrastructure to prevent more global warming, then the computational resources could be allocated to help solve other societal problems.

Delivering the message: As long as the internet groups allow our comics to be posted, then I think they will be effective at relaying the information to the audience. The captions connect and explain a lot of the ideas in the comics that might not be as obvious from just the comics alone. The audience will be able to understand what everything is because the drawings are clear. It should also be effective due to the humorous nature of the comics, which helps make the subject “lighter” and able to spread easier.

The work: The work is uploaded to this wikipage, as well as submitted as high-res .png files on canvas. They were created in Photoshop.

5: Global carbon and other biogeochemical cycles and feedbacks

Week 11 - Margaryta Pustova & Henry Crawford

Presentation title - Biogeochemical Feedbacks

Readings

1. Box 5.1, Permafrost Carbon and Feedbacks to Climate (located in Chapter 5.4.3)
2. 5.4.4, Climate Effects on Future Ocean Climate Uptake

Outreach piece - we updated the public Wikipedia page for 'Permafrost' to include more current research and results of the IPCC AR6 Report [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permafrost]

1. Target audience: Wikipedia states no particular target audience. Based on current writing of the wikipedia permafrost page, the target audience is high school or above where topics are explained broadly with some technical details incorporated. We are adding more accurate values and specifics to the text which targets the more informed reader, intended to be the general public.
2. Main message: Our main message is the current and projected states of permafrost landscapes in respect to global climate change and the carbon cycle, based on the most up-to-date and agreed upon scientific studies.
3. Delivering the message: This work will be effective at delivering the message to our audience because wikipedia is a widely known and frequently used public platform. Updating the Permafrost page is a simple yet high-leverage way to reach thousands of individuals across the globe. We will update, clarify, and extend upon details of permafrost in respect to global climate change and the carbon cycle here [Link]. Currently, the page references the IPCC fifth annual report, studies from the early 2000’s, and various news articles. Given our evolving knowledge of permafrost systems, statements and values in the current wikipedia page are now outdated. This is particularly true for projections of permafrost systems under future climate scenarios. Most of the background information is okay.
4. Work: Suggested edits were submitted as to the wikipedia page (see word doc summited on canvas)

Week 12 - Frances Jones and Lili Callahan

Presentation: Responses to CO₂ removal

Chapters: Section 5.6 - Biogeochemical Implications of Carbon Dioxide Removal and Solar Radiation Modification

Outreach Piece - vintage style advertising poster to educate the public about carbon offsetting their commercial flights

1. What the target audience: The audience will be UBC students and faculty who walk past our advertisement in the various places on campus where we hang it up.
2. Main message: The message of our outreach project is to get the general public thinking about offsetting their emissions when they fly. We are assuming that the general public is only aware of carbon offsetting in the context of offsetting their flights, which is usually offered to them through the airline. We want the public to think more critically about the offsets that they are purchasing.
3. Effectiveness at delivering the message: If UBC returns to in person learning on Feb 7th we believe our work will be effective at delivering a message as we plan to put the posters in high traffic areas (the Nest, the Life Building, Libraries) as well as in the department buildings. We hope that the catchy advertisements get people interested enough to scan the QR code. The QR code links to a website called Linktree [Link] where readers can find more information about Carbon Dioxide Removal and DAC. The website also allows us to see how many people click on the links so we can see how effective our outreach is.
4. The Work: Link - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1txvlxHZV7oPj8nXBjF0JCQcBqC3kTyLjC7Cxh9BSDP0/edit

6: Short-lived climate forcers, Aerosols

Section 6.6. Air Quality and Climate Response to SLCF Mitigation - Lili and Frances

Figure 1: Emissions can warm and cool the atmosphere.

For our outreach project about SLCF mitigation, we made a slideshow that can be used as a ~15 minute lesson plan or as directions for creating a quiz on the escape room website. It includes figures we made that could be displayed at the PME.

Figure 2: Short term impact of human activities.

Target Audience: The audience would primarily be children with some science background (12+) who are touring the museum or doing the escape room.

Main Message: The main point of the quiz and the figures is that different gases are emitted by human activities, and some can warm the atmosphere while others can cool the atmosphere. Below are the respective captions for the figures we made.

Figure 1 caption: Humans emit many types of gases and particles in the atmosphere, like carbon dioxide from vehicles and methane from agriculture. They often have negative consequences for human health and the potential to change the temperature of the surface of Earth. Depending on their respective radiative properties, they can either absorb and transmit more heat from the sun, causing warming of the atmosphere, or reflect heat, causing cooling. The lifetimes of the molecules determine the effect that the gas or aerosol has in the future. Carbon dioxide, which makes up the bulk of emissions and has a ~100 year lifetime, ultimately overpowers the effects of other emissions and causes long-term warming.

Figure 2 caption: Specific activities often emit a slew of different gases or aerosols which persist in the atmosphere for varying amounts of time. For example, land transportation emits both carbon dioxide, a warming GHG that stays in the atmosphere for ~100 years, and nitrogen oxides, which are cooling gases that stay in the atmosphere for only a few days. This makes it more complicated to determine the net effect that the activity has on the temperature of the atmosphere in the short-term. In this figure, the left side in blue indicates the estimated amount of cooling that is caused by the emissions from the activity after 10 years. The right side in red indicates the estimated amount of warming. Some activities, like energy production, have emissions which balance eachother out and don’t cause a distinct change in temperature, but others, like agriculture, cause a clear warming or cooling in the short-term.  

Effectiveness: We believe this work will be effective because it can take many forms. If the slideshow is used as a lesson plan for a museum workshop, it is very engaging since it has a quiz aspect. This way, the viewers can take what they learned from the first few educational slides and apply it to the scenarios. For the virtual escape room, a short, simple quiz could add variety to the website. Since the quiz relies on the figure, the quiz-takers additionally learn how to interpret scientific graphs.

Outreach Work: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Dr_5Hx3bdWrfp4rgmng7ZguV1rfNfzODmbI5ov6Xz6I/edit?usp=sharing

7: The Earth’s energy budget, climate feedbacks, and climate sensitivity

Week 8 - Reagan and Nealan. Chapter 7.4, cloud feedbacks.

Target Audience: High-school students.

Main Message: The main message of this outreach project is to make students aware of the roles clouds play in climate change, what feedbacks are, and how clouds contribute to feedbacks. It will also help them understand that climate change has different effects in different regions. Another part of the message is that cloud science is complicated, explaining part of why there is some uncertainty in climate change.

How it will be effective in delivering the message: The wording in the 1 page write-up is simple enough for students to understand despite not having much background in climate science. Although they will have already been taught generally about climate change, they probably do not know the more specific details like what clouds at different altitudes do, or how feedback effects modulate climate change. However, they should understand the water cycle by this point so it is not too big of an info dump for them. Crosswords are a fun way to deliver this information, because students generally enjoy activities like this to break up the monotony of normal quizzes and assignments. The crossword ensures that they will read the information we provided, because they will need it to solve the puzzle.

Work: The crossword is available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/16XeMEnlnU7G7DUowx1i8Z0hEXfAcyZAg/view?usp=sharing

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Week 9 - Ruth Moore & Christina Draeger

Presentation title - Climate feedbacks: Polar amplification

Outreach piece - Collaboration Fair with Axiom Brass and the UBC School of Music

For our public outreach project on the topic of polar amplification (IPCC Chapters 7.4.4.1 and 7.4.4.3), we are taking part in an interdisciplinary collaboration between EOAS and the UBC School of Music. The objective is to create a series of Earth Science-inspired compositions to premiere on Earth Day (late April 2022) as part of the 25th anniversary celebrations of EOAS. Students of the UBC Composition Division (“composers”) are linked with music students (“performers”) and EOAS students (“scientists”) with the goal of creating a unique piece of music conveying the message of the scientists.

The Chicago-based brass quintet Axiom Brass facilitates the collaboration, and Philippe Tortell (EOAS), Valery Whitney (School of Music) and Kirsten Hodge (PME) act as mentors. In an introductory meeting in October 2021, five groups were formed, consisting each of one composer, one-two scientists and an ensemble of instrumentalists. Each group will work closely together to create a piece of art of around 5 minutes, which can incorporate visual imagery, electronic sounds or other types of performance (e.g. dance or speech) as well. The progress is discussed and feedback is given in monthly check-up meetings with Axiom Brass and the mentors.

• Target audience: The target audience for this outreach project is the general public. The concert in late April 2022 will be advertised broadly.
• Main message - Christina's group: Glaciers and ice sheets are declining rapidly, and this trend will even increase in the future. Glacier change has drastic impacts on humans. The message will be conveyed through a scary, creepy and unsettling tone throughout the piece. This is achieved through dissonant chords and frequent changes in tempi (rhythms). Moreover, a shift in volume from pianissimo (very quiet) to fortissimo (very loud) will be used to show how urgent the warning is. Recorded sounds (glacier calving, footsteps on a glacier, water dropping) will be used to enhance the experience, and to show the beauty of glaciers and ice sheets which is worth preserving.
• Main message - Ruth's group: The world has been warming at an alarming rate over the last 100 years. Most of the general public is aware of this change, and we are looking to convey it in a new and dynamic way. We recognise the power of song, particularly strong lyrics and hope to use these in our message. To represent the background or baseline atmospheric conditions we use piano. Our piece has a highly rhythmic pulse and comprises 22 beats - reflecting our performance occurring in 2022. The vocals consist of short phrases and statistics which increase in intensity as the piece goes on. The lyrics are quite dramatic and represent a world in which time is running out. We hope to show multiple future versions which follow what would happen if we continue as we are or if we stick to the Paris Agreement pledges or the new ones from COP 26. This work is still in progress but we hope that it will bring a new perspective and frame of thinking to discussions of warming and changing climate.
• Effectiveness: We think that our work will be effective at delivering our message to the audience, because it creates a multi-sensory experience which will speak to the emotions of the audience. We try to educate the general public about climate change through unconventional ways and bridge the gap between “knowing” about a subject matter and “acting”. We make the audience experience the gloomy and urgent mood state of climate change, which might help to make them feel personally affected and responsible. The multimedia performance will help to create an engaging and immersive experience and will include an audience that would not usually find its way to a traditional concert hall. The interdisciplinary way the collaboration is set up is exceptional, as it allows the three groups (“composer”, “performers”, “scientists”) to work together on a piece of music, instead of traditional ways of the composer finishing a piece of music and the performers practicing it, or the composer getting inspired by science, but not interacting with scientists. With this setup and the different backgrounds, we believe we can achieve a much more creative and effective piece of art. Furthermore, it allows scientists with no background in music studies to communicate their research through music, and it takes the sole responsibility of sketching a piece of music away from the composer and makes it a collaborative effort. As scientists, we first explained our research and the implications of climate change to the composer and performers and made this part of science understandable and much more approachable for them. This part can already be seen as a first successful step of “outreach” to other faculties. While the pieces of music will be new and creative, we also aim for them to be easily interpretable, as the concert in late April is targeted to the general public.
• Work: A first sketch and audio example of the music pieces can be found here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1T3c2decaTf196NIWj4inX6gIB1i3DPWG

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Week 10 - Colin Rowell & Christina Draeger

Presentation title - Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity

Outreach piece - Beta-version of the climate simulator exercise for the "Climate Escape" program of PME

1. Target audience: The “Climate Escape” program is aimed at K-12 school groups, and could potentially be extended to undergrad courses. A collaboration with EcoSchools Canada will ensure a broad reach of student participants across Canada. So far, EcoSchools Canada reaches K-12 students in eight provinces and has relationships with over 100 school boards and districts across the country.
2. Main message: Our main message is that climate change affects everyone, and all of us are responsible through our collective carbon footprint. The connections between different contributions to greenhouse gas emissions are complex, and there is an urgent need for action, as adjustment to a new equilibrium is slow.
3. Effectiveness: Research showed that climate worry raises personal responsibility and, thereby, diverse climate actions. Moreover, individuals’ climate actions not only depend on the values individuals personally endorse, but also on the values they perceive their groups to endorse. Thus, an individual’s perceptions of others’ values might be critical in (de)motivating an individual’s climate actions. Hence, we think that our work will be effective at delivering our message to the target audience, because it involves a contemporary, immersive group exercise, the virtual escape room, and connects the learnings on climate change to the students’ everyday life. The students will learn the regional differences in carbon footprint, and will see the effects on the climate if all countries had a carbon footprint similar to the North American one. They will experience how much different factors contribute to a CO2 increase, and how long it takes for changes to show effect on the global mean temperature. As the tool (En-ROADS) is freely available, interested students can explore it further after the workshop.
4. Work: Description and explanations - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ALfGxJ4vqYDtx4wNgOte-h1Rzci5swjk/view?usp=sharing

8: Water cycle changes

Presentation Leaders: Ruth Moore and Lualawi Mareshet Admasu

Presentation title - How and why the atmospheric water cycle is changing

Read Chapter 8.3.1

In class activity To prepare we divided the class into three groups, where each of you them had a different spatial region, we assigned them a continent and they could choose the latitude (ie within Africa the Sahal or Equatorial region) to work on. They only needed to do the reading based on the groups and produce a water cycle diagram - showing the fluxes within the cycle and how they will change with climate change.

Learning objectives

Identify the major components of the atmospheric water cycle

Understand the major drivers of change in each of said components

Know the available assessment methods and what is lacking of them

Know the identified and expected trends of change in each component

Compare and contrast changes temporarily across the globe

Appreciate the complexity of bringing all aspects of the water cycle together

Outreach piece - Interactive game for the museum

Target audience:

Children aged 10-14, with a basis of mathematics and scientific knowledge.

Motivation and background:

We wanted to create a game that helps to describe and teach students about how the different components of the water cycle work together to affect the water availability of a region. Water is one of the most essential natural resources on the planet, with access to water underpinning almost all of the sustainable development goals [Mekonnen and Hoekstra, 2016], for drinking, sanitation and other purposes.

While the concept of the water cycle may be familiar to students of this age group, the specific mechanisms and processes which affect water availability are not. We want to clearly show how temperature and plants cover affect precipitation, transpiration, evaporation, runoff and water storage. We want to show how severe forcing of temperature or reduction in plant cover affects these factors, eventually leading to low water availability to individuals (ie low water in the aquifer supplying our town).

Main message:

The main message of our piece is that the water cycle is a complex process that is controlled by many factors, two of which are plant availability and temperature. Both of these components work together to balance the water cycle. We want to show that extreme temperature changes or events that reduce the number of plants in an area are specifically dangerous for water availability.

Work & delivering the message:

Game

To deliver this message we have created a mock-up of a game that will be created by the software company working with the museum. Our game is an interactive puzzle where students can change the severity of forcings (number of plants or temperature) in order to keep an aquifer supplying a town full of water. Please see the attached pdf for screenshots of our proposed gameplay.

To win the game the students need to try and balance temperature and plant cover to keep the aquifer full.

The game is lost if the temperature of the environment gets too high, or if the number of plants gets too low. In this case, the game resets and the students get the opportunity to play again.

We have written the code which will be the basis of this game (see attached).

Supporting material

In order to support the learning of the students, we have produced a fact sheet that explains the components of the water cycle that we are focusing on. This is a one-page fact sheet that will be available to students and teachers prior to playing the game.

Effectiveness

Our game describes a simplified portion of the water cycle, which we hope clearly shows the importance of temperature and plants on water availability.  

Possible further development

The future development of this game is to use different parameters depending on the location of the model, ie in an arid environment where the soil is very dry, or a wetter climate where it often gets saturated.

A mock up of our game and our presentation can be seen here - https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/148iGl6Zipn-IdEAYg8TMkipoIo2AqdUqO54cnsjMenA/edit?usp=sharing.

Bibliography

[Mekonnen and Hoekstra, 2016] Mekonnen, M.M. and Hoekstra, A.Y., 2016. Four billion people facing severe water scarcity. Science advances, 2(2), p.e1500323.

8.3 and 8.4: How is the water cycle changing and why? What are the projected changes?

An example of the variable options students will have in the Python script

Eva Gnegy and Lualawi Mareshet Admasu

The Outreach and Motivation

For our outreach, we created a short Python script that plots basic temperature and precipitation plots for a climate model for various scenarios/years. One of the most important skills necessary for climate science today is the ability to code and analyze climate data. This outreach aims to provide a basic introduction into programming with Python and visualization of climate data. This will help introduce those who usually access climate communication through media to how the science behind it operates. This will also give some introduction into coding for the target audience which may come in handy in other scientific endeavors. Before diving into our script, a basic "what is coding?" intro should be offered. Additionally, this workshop pairs well with the UCAR game from Eva and Christina's outreach which shows the end climate projection plots that scientists look at.

An example of temperature and precipitation plots with good colormap choices

Target Audience

The target audience for this outreach project is high-school students (14-18 years). This is intended to be a workshop/class offered by the PME; specifically one that can be delivered at schools (rather than them coming to the PME). The content of this outreach is likely too advanced for middle school students (9-14 years).

Main message

• Coding is a very important skill for the Earth sciences!
• Earth scientists use code to formulate their research, such as how:
  • climate change will vary in space, time, extent and climate variables
  • the Earth has already changed in space, time, extend, and variables

An example of temperature and precipitation plots with bad colormap choices

Effectiveness

• This project gives students the opportunity to see an entire script that produces historical and future plots for atmospheric variables. It allows them to edit the script (easily) to see different pictures of what is happening, and thus formulate their own questions and conclusions.

The Code

The students will have access to the full script but only have to change features like the variable (temp. or precip.), scenario (low or high emissions), starting years (for a 30 year average), and colormaps. Based on the user's preference, the code will run and provide the difference in the selected variable between the selected future time (selected scenario), historical time, and preindustrial time using the chosen color. (Some colorers are more "correct" than others for the selected variables). The users will be able to see how the code reads in the files, calculates time means and differences, and finally how it plots them. These are some of the most basic but essential coding features.

Goal

This workshop is intended to be led by an instructor and have students answer questions such as:

- In what regions is temperature/precipitation expected to increase/decrease?

- How does that increase/decrease change between the two future scenarios?

- What are the changes in temperature/precipitation between the late 1800s compared to the late 1900s?

At the same time, instructors will also be able to teach students how one can use code and plots to answer such scientific questions. Furthermore, instructors can communicate how answers to such questions can vary by how the data is presented. This will mainly be evident in the choice of colormap and appropriate use of title and legend features.

9: Ocean, cryosphere, and sea level change

Week 3 - Margaryta Pustova & Ruth Moore

Presentation title - Ocean Heat Content & Global Sea-Level Change

Chapters

1. Ocean Heat Content - 2.3.3.1 Ocean Heat Content and 3.5.1.3 Ocean Heat Content Contribution
2. Sea Level - 2.3.3.3 Past Sea Level Changes and 3.5.3.2 Sea-Level Rise Attribution

Outreach piece - a podcast on Ocean Heat Content and Sea Level Changes

Show notes - In this podcast, graduate students Margaryta Pustova and Ruth Moore discuss changes in the ocean heat content and sea level rise, how these changes are measured, what these levels were like in the past, and how we know that these changes can be attributed to human effects. For further information please see https://www.ipcc.ch/, AR6, chapters  2.3.3.1,  2.3.3.3, 3.5.1.3 and 3.5.3.2.

Link - https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/kv8tjv/podcast_ohc_slr.m4a

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Week 4? - Reagan McKinney & Henry Crawford

Presentation title - Observations of the Cryosphere

Readings

1. Executive Summaries of the 2019 Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate: Chapter 2 High Mountain Areas, Chapter 3: Polar Regions.
2. Chapter 2.3.2.3 and Chapter 3.4.3.1 of the AR6 Working group report.

Outreach piece - Art Gallery

• Target audience: Our audience is the public. Particularly those who are not within the scientific community, or those who respond most strongly through visual learning and experiences.
• Main message: It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land.  Elements of the cryosphere are now in states unseen in centuries. The intention of the ‘Unprecedented Gallery’ is to help those less familiar with the status of the cryosphere better understand its vulnerable future in wake of human-induced climate change.
• Delivering the message: By presenting a series of stimulating and thought-provoking pieces, we aim to first expose the audience to the natural beauty of the cryosphere to build a sense of appreciation with these often-distant landscapes. Developing this emotional connection enables the audience to delve deeper into their feelings of empathy as we present compositions which embody the “unprecedented” change occurring in the cryosphere. It is this empathy which we hope will motivate viewers to make individual changes and encourage leading powers to address the climate crisis in alignment with the International Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) guidance.
• Work: See the gallery wikipedia page: Course:EOSC595 Climate/Past Projects#Gallery
• File:Cryosphere outreach.pdfGallery .pdf:

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Workshop/lesson plan around the Ice Flows Game

Lilianne Callahan and Christina Draeger

For our public outreach project on the topic of marine ice sheet instabilities, we created a lesson plan around the Ice Flow game. The Ice Flow Game is built on a simplified representation of the Antarctic Ice Sheet and shows how the ice flows and how the flow speed changes in response to altered conditions in the environment.

The two key drivers of change are changes in snowfall and ocean temperatures. The players control climatic changes that result in different thickness and extent of the ice sheet. The goal is to guide some penguins to reach the fish that they eat without being eaten by a seal, and the location of both the seal and the fish depends on the extent and thickness of the ice.

The game was developed by Dr. Anne Le Brocq at the University of Exeter in 2016 in collaboration with some software companies. Funding was provided by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) through a research grant led by the British Antarctic Survey. It is available as an app and also a website version.

The Ice Flow Game features a version for Antarctica, and was recently extended by a version for Greenland, where the players are responsible for getting a seal sliding from a cliff safely into the water, without it being eaten by a polar bear. Again, the extent of the cliff and the thickness depends on several climatic factors that can be controlled by the player.

Target Audience

The target audience for this outreach project are children (6-12 years).

Main message

The main message is that ice sheet dynamics are affected by air and ocean temperatures,

and changes in the ice-ocean environment does have severe implications for the global climate and for ecosystems. Here we show that it can alter the habitat for animals like penguins and fish.

Effectiveness

We promote the understanding of the complexity of an ice sheet system and how it responds to climate change by enabling players to carry out their own ice sheet model experiments. The game has several levels, and in each level, the system and feedback loops become more complex. For example, the game starts with influences from only the amount of snowfall, and is extended by the water temperature and the land surface temperature in each level. Moreover, it will teach the students the difference between drivers of Antarctic ice sheet melt vs. melting of the Greenland ice sheet. The game is made with a beautiful design, and students can choose the penguin that they are playing, such that they also learn about different kinds of penguin species, and at the same time get a more tailored and fun experience where they can choose from different options themselves. We know when the students have learned something from the game, as the level of understanding of different drivers for changes in Antarctica and Greenland can be seen in terms of their performance in the game, and the levels they advance to.

The Ice Flows Game already features a variety of additional resources, such as teacher training and lesson plans, which we will use for our outreach project.

Website and Resources

Game:

http://www.iceflowsgame.com

Education Resource Pack:

http://www.iceflowsgame.com/resources/IceFlows_v1_3.pdf

Outreach Work

For our outreach work, we will use the game “Ice Flows” and the provided lesson plan for an activity with the PME. As we see it, there are three options about how the Ice Flows Game can be employed, and the final selection will be subject to discussions of feasibility with the PME.

• Option 1: In the museum as part of the climate change exhibit: Students will play the game on an iPad with a short description and overview text that will be displayed next to the iPad. The description will be taken from the educational resource pack.

• Option 2: As part of a museum workshop: We will use the existing resources of the Ice Flows Game to conduct the workshop. There are resources e.g. on how snow transforms to ice, to learn about the different spheres on Earth (see below), and many more for different grades.
• Option 3: As part of the virtual climate change escape room: A short description of the game will be provided (similar to option 1), and players can only “escape” climate change, if they reached a certain level in the game, i.e., if they understand the interplay between the different drivers of Antarctic ice sheet melt.

10: Linking global to regional climate change

Workshop for the PME on Regional Climate

Eva Gnegy and Christina Draeger

As our outreach project on regional climate modelling and internal variability, we would like to plan a workshop for the PME on regional climate. The workshop will include three interactive games provided by UCAR, which are openly available. The first activity is about comparing climate projection maps of precipitation and temperature for various regions, the second activity involves sorting El Nino and La Nina events, and thus learning about internal variability, and the third activity involves learning about the sun’s brightness and albedo effects, in order to distinguish between anthropogenic climate change and natural factors.

Specifically, the first game (climate projections) ties greatly into Eva and Lualawi’s coding outreach workshop. It shows the students various plots scientists look at --> then the coding workshop teaches them how to make them.

The second game (El Nina) could be its own activity for even younger students (middle school), and could use flash cards instead of the online component. An entire (small) course could be created on ocean/atmospheric circulation.

The final game (albedo) is quite simple, and would be a good game for students perhaps while other students are finishing up another workshop and have finished.

Target Audience

The target audience for this outreach project are high-school students (14-18 years). This is intended to be a workshop offered by the PME. The El Nina game could be developed for middle schoolers.

Main message

• The climate is influenced by natural factors, which can obscure human-caused climate change
• Climate change will vary in space, time, extent and climate variable

Effectiveness

This project allows students to choose what plots they want to see in order to answer various research questions. It is effective in the sense that students will have a fun time scoring points in the games, while learning about important concepts of the Earth. We will be able to see how effective our teaching has been by how fast they reach the end of the game (for the El Nino/La Nina game), or by the discussions that will evolve from the regional climate map and albedo games. The activity will also teach students how to use maps of precipitation and temperature. All in all, the activities will provide the students with a better understanding of human-caused climate change and will put them in a position to be able to better discuss with the general public and climate change sceptics.

Outreach Work

Activities

1. Compare maps of regional climate projections: https://scied.ucar.edu/interactive/compare-climates-regional-future-selector
2. Sort it out: El Nino or La Nina: https://scied.ucar.edu/interactive/enso-sorting-game
3. Earth’s albedo and the sun’s brightness affect climate change: https://scied.ucar.edu/interactive/albedo-brightness

While the students do those activities, we will use the following questions to guide their learning.

Patterns to look for:

Climate Projections

• Which will warm more – areas over land or over oceans? Coasts or inland regions?
• Will there be more warming near the equator or near the poles? Will the Arctic and Antarctic warm the same amount?
• Will there be more or less precipitation in the high-latitude regions around the North Pole and the South Pole?
• Do you see any places where it will get a lot wetter or a lot drier?

El Nino, La Nina

• When were El Nino and La Nina years?
• How strong was the influence in different parts of the world?

Albedo

• How would Earth's temperature change if the albedo was higher or lower?
• How would Earth's temperature change if the Sun was brighter or dimmer?
• Today’s climate is warming because of extra greenhouse gases. As warmer temperatures melt ice, how will that change the albedo and temperature?

13. Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC)

Presentation Leaders: Ruth Moore and Henry Crawford

Presentation title - AMOC

• Read Chapter 9.2.3.1 AMOC
• Find a news article or piece of media related to the AMOC ‘shutdown’, or similar. Try searching for older news articles, and bonus points for dramatic titles!

Learning objectives

• Understand the physical processes behind thermohaline circulation with a focus on the AMOC.
• Understand observed change of the AMOC and what projected change looks like and how we know this.  
• Contrast information from media outlets and discuss the effect of harsh headlines on how we communicate climate change to the general public.

Outreach piece - Media guide and poster

Target audience: Our target audience is the proportion of the general public who are familiar with concepts of climate change, and who are reasonably informed. We particularly focus on anyone who reads research-based news and is looking to further refine their interpretations. We are not aiming this guide at climate change deniers or children.

Motivation and background: We wanted to create a guide to help individuals navigate the news landscape in the time of the climate crisis. The motivation for this project came from the word clouds that we made for our presentation on the supposed AMOC shutdown- a highly sensationalised news topic. During the 2010s, many articles were written which proposed a shutting down of the AMOC, which was postulated to cause extreme weather in Europe. Further research into the AMOC has shown that the dip seen in its activity during that time was due to internal variability, and even under SSP-RCP8.5 scenarios, it may slow but will not shut down SROCC [Collins et al., 2019]. This is a key example of both the media and the scientific community creating panic and worry around a climate issue, and highlights a need to address news-sensalaism in climate research. Our investigations shed light on the difference in language and message between climate-based news articles and research papers. In particular, news often omits key components of uncertainty, internal variability, and detail which are integral components of climate science that showcase the realistic bounds of our estimations. Omitting this information may help make science more understanding, but can prematurely turn results of active research into misleading public facts.

Our hope is that individuals read our guide before engaging with climate based news, and become aware of the subtle differences between news and actual research. Becoming more literate on the role of uncertainty in climate research will arm advocates against common. By becoming more aware of the true uncertainties, readers can better respond to common refutes against climate science such as ‘it's all within natural variability’ or ‘they don’t know that for certain’. Additionally, we believe that educating and informing the general public about these differences will help to combat climate anxiety, which can act as a deterrent for action in the wake of the climate crisis [Wu, J., Snell, G. and Samji, H., 2020].  

Main message: The main message of our piece is to be aware of the difference in sensationalist climate based news and research papers. We want to bring the science, and all its uncertainties, to the forefront of the conversations as opposed to one lined conclusions or summaries from abstracts.

Work & delivering the message: To refine our message, we read a number of papers discussing impacts and changes in climate change-related news content. We also explored a variety of news articles and the scientific literature they summarise. To deliver our message, we developed a PDF guide for news readers to have while engaging with written news content.

To deliver this message we have created a PDF which will be shared to twitter/reddit/facebook to assist individuals when engaging with climate change news media. This guide provides steps and guidance on what to watch out for when engaging with science-based climate change news.

This guide is linked to a printable poster via a QR code. The poster quickly engages the audience through word clouds that visually compare the differences between climate change news media and the 2021 IPCC report. Comparisons are meaningful, but subtle, and promote readers to explore further (i.e. link to the guide). The poster can be put up around EOAS,  for example.

Guide [File:News Guide.png]

Poster [File:News Guide Poster.png]

Effectiveness: The outreach piece provides both detailed steps and a simple infographic, depending on the user's level of interest. The guide is effective as it is quick and easy to digest. It contains high-level bullet points distilled from several research papers and personal experience interpreting scientific literature and related news articles. We chose bright but calming colours (blues) as a background to help make it an engaging and reassuring guide to read. The poster is an eye catching visual representation of this work which introduces the audience to a vulnerability they may not be aware of, and entices them to learn more.