This collection of student work is from Frank Keim's classes. He wants to share these works for others to use as an example of culturally-based curriculum and documentation. These documents have been OCR-scanned and are available for educational use only.Special | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O
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More Extreme Weather Expected in The Future:More Extreme Weather Expected in The Future
The Earth is warming up fast and we humans are helping it. According to the National Climatic Data Center weather extremes are becoming more frequent. There are more hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, flooding and droughts. So far this century, extreme weather events have increased by 20 percent. The annual precipitation has gone up by 8 percent. People should keep their sandbags ready. Instead of the light rains and gentle snowfalls of the past there is going to be more of it that causes floods. Many of the snow caps in the mountains around the world are melting and glacier ice is cracking and floating off into the oceans. There has also been widespread flooding along the coastal areas. In North Dakota there have been six hundred-year floods in the last ten years. Last winter a couple of major blizzards buried California's Sierra Nevada, but the New Year's warm weather melted it. That caused massive flooding in the Central Valley, causing 36 deaths and billions of dollars in damage. Even with all these storms and a large amount of pack snow in the mountains, there may be a drought in the summer. The world's glaciers have shrunk 11 percent in the past century, and, according to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) one-third to one-half of all mountain glacier mass could disappear within the next century. Another concern is the Antarctic ice shelves which are melting very fast. Two huge chunks, the size of Rhode Island, have fallen off in the past two years. Antarctica's temperature has risen two degrees Faerenheit since the 1950's. At this rate most of the East Coast beaches will vanish within the next 25 years. They are already disappearing at the rate of two feet per year. The Everglades and Atchafalaya swamps will be totally underwater. Everybody talks about the weather and nobody does anything about it. If we all don't act now the Earth is going to be badly damaged. Many people are enjoying the warmer weather up here in Alaska, but this warmer weather may end up hurting the Earth. Cheryl Hunter Source: Global Climate Change, Sierra Magazine, 1997. ______________________________ Warming seas lure
California fish north ________________________ In the Gulf of Alaska, surface temperature | |
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