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Communicating Climate Change

Annotated resources for teaching climate change from interdisciplinary perspectives. Contributions are welcomed by the sponsor, NSF EPSCoR, and initial contributors Dr. Y. Houy, UNLV Honors College, and Dr. P. Starkweather, UNLV School of Life Science.

Climate Science

There is no shortage of easily accessible information about climate science, the data sets used to prove that global warming is occurring at an alarming rate, and summaries of scientific findings that human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are the reason for global warming.

The organizations listed here show the vast amount of resources put into communicating climate science methods and their scientific findings using numerous communication technologies, including organized and updated websites, access to data sets, images and videos visualizing climate science data and likely climate change risks (see also “Scientific Visualization” in this libguide), as well as educational materials (see also the “Other Learning Resources” section in this libguide).

In the face of all of this easily viewable public materials on climate change science and risks, climate change denial and skepticism is not a problem of a lack of information about anthropogenic climate change, but a problem of how that information reaches (or does not reach) audiences with diverse interests and values, and how information is framed for different audiences and influential stakeholders (see also the sections “Communicating Climate Change”, “Climate Change Denial”, “Framing Discussions”, “Learning from Entertainment”, and “Educational Games”).

Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (website)

This website provides the findings, research methods, and data sets of an extensive research project into global warming headed by former climate change skeptic Dr. Richard Muller. The site has detailed graphics showing scientific findings strongly suggesting that anthropogenic climate change is occurring. The site also provides access to the extensive data sets used: http://berkeleyearth.org/

Dr. Muller’s NYT opinion page article explains his conversion from a climate change skeptic to accepting climate change as anthropogenic: Muller, R. (2012, July 28). The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic. NYT. Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/opinion/the-conversion-of-a-climate-change-skeptic.html?pagewanted=all

US Government Climate Science (websites)

NASA Global Climate Change: http://climate.nasa.gov/

NOAA National Climatic Data Center:  http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/

National Snow & Ice Data Center: http://nsidc.org/

National Science Foundation: http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/climate/

EPA Climate Change: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/

US Global Change Research Program:  http://www.globalchange.gov/

NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies: http://www.giss.nasa.gov/

USDA Forest Service Climate Change Resource Center: http://www.fs.fed.us/ccrc/

United Nations Climate Change Research and Sustainability Policies (websites)

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): http://www.ipcc.ch/

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change:  http://unfccc.int/2860.php

United National Environment Programme: http://www.unep.org/

 

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