Poleward Heat Transport Jigsaw

E. Christa Farmer

Hofstra Geology

This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Activities collection and has been reviewed by 1 other review process (view details)

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Initial Publication Date: October 21, 2008 | Reviewed: October 22, 2012 (see revision history: 2 events)

Summary

Based on great plate tectonic exercise by Sawyer et al. (2005 JGE), this small-group exercise with maps of data about earth's energy balance helps students visualize poleward heat transport.

Solar and terrestrial radiation, Energy, heat and temperature, ...(more) | College Lower (13-14), College Upper (15-16)

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Topics

Solar and terrestrial radiation, Energy, heat and temperature, Atmospheric circulation, Extreme weather, Global energy balance, Solar radiation, Atmospheric and oceanic circulation, Climate Change, Atmospheric Science, Ocean-Climate Interactions, Energy, Hurricanes

Grade Level

College Lower (13-14), College Upper (15-16)

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Context

Audience

I first tested this exercise in a upper-level paleoclimate class for majors, fixed some major problems, and have then used it in my first-year student seminar (introductory, almost no science majors) "Global Warming and the Science of Climate Change."

Skills and concepts that students must have mastered

They must have some concept of Watts per square meter, how to read latitude and longitude, and how to plot 2-dimensional data.

How the activity is situated in the course

I use this as a lab exercise to accompany some more lecture-based classes introducing the climate system and the earth's fundamental solar-IR energy balance.

Goals

Content/concepts goals for this activity

The students will have a better understanding of how energy enters and exits the earth system and how that balance drives oceanic and atmospheric motions.

Higher order thinking skills goals for this activity

Students will practice graphing 2-dimensional data, and "see" quantitative relationships spatially (hopefully helping them understand where the equations come from).

Other skills goals for this activity

Students will work in groups (I like how the "jigsaw" format creates groups of "experts" who then have to explain what they've done to folks who haven't done it).

Description of the activity/assignment

To prepare for this exercise, students will read about the Earth's energy balance, the electromagnetic spectrum (including visible solar and invisible infrared energy), the effect of the earth's atmosphere, and the earth's resulting general oceanic and atmospheric circulation. For this I like Chapters 3, 4, & 5 in "The Earth System" (2nd Ed.) by Kump, Kasting, & Crane. The students' first step is to estimate zonal averages of Incoming Solar (Shortwave), Absorbed Shortwave, and Outgoing Longwave Radiation from 11x17in color maps of Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) data. Then I remix the groups and they create zonal averages of these data at particular longitudes (like Fig. 2-14 in Ruddiman, "Earth's Climate: Past & Future").

Determining whether students have met the goals

We compare all groups' longitudinal plots and realize they are all very similar; I have extensive discussion in subsequent classes to make sure everyone understands (I have only used this in a seminar class so far).

More information about assessment tools and techniques.

Teaching materials and tips

Activity Description/Assignment (Acrobat (PDF) 72kB Oct21 08)

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Instructors Notes (Acrobat (PDF) 104kB Oct21 08)

Modifications on this activity from the community

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Contributed by Diana L. Thatcher and Chris Harding
The original maps had lots of missing data (white spaces) so we created new maps for the activity using ECMWF 40-year reanalysis model data. We also simplified the maps to just two sets - energy emitted from the sun (shortwave radiation) and energy emitted from the Earth (longwave radiation) measured at the top of the atmosphere (TOA). We adjusted the lab activity questions to match the new maps. Additionally, we compiled more data, maps, and an animated gif of monthly variations.

topofatm_thermal.pdf (Acrobat (PDF) 467kB Jun20 20)

topofatm_solar.pdf (Acrobat (PDF) 487kB Jun20 20)

Other Materials

Map of Incoming Solar Radiation (Acrobat (PDF) 509kB Oct21 08)

Map of Absorbed Solar Radiation (Acrobat (PDF) 542kB Oct21 08)

Map of Outgoing Terrestrial Radiation (Acrobat (PDF) 527kB Oct21 08)

Italian translated version of this activity, hosted by ICLEEN Analisi del Bilancio Radiativo Terrestre

Supporting references/URLs

This exercise is modeled on this activity:
Sawyer, Henning, Shipp, & Dunbar (2005). A Data Rich Exercise for Discovering Plate Boundary Processes. Journal of Geoscience Education, v. 53, n. 1, p. 65-74.
Data used in this exercise were collected in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE), and plotted using the online viewer of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory/International Research Institute Climate Data Library: http://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu/SOURCES/.NASA/.ERBE/.Climatology/

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