Monday, 29 January 2024: 11:15 AM
308 (The Baltimore Convention Center)
This online learning demonstration would highlight the AMS Climate at a Glance (CAG) App, which enables users to easily run a statistical test for climate change on the local level. The AMS CAGApp has been successfully incorporated into the AMS Climate Studies undergraduate course and the DataStreme Earth’s Climate System (ECS) K-12 teacher professional development course, and is available for public usage. It enables students to better understand the differences between climate variability and climate change. The app is available at https://ametsoc.org/amsedu/ecs/cag/ and is also linked from NOAA’s Climate Resilience Toolkit.
Climate change, as defined by NOAA, is “a long-term shift in the statistics of the weather (including its averages).” The AMS CAGApp enables educators and students to objectively evaluate data from a particular parameter, such as average annual temperature or heating degree days, at a particular station for two non-overlapping 30-year periods (in keeping with the time interval used for calculating climate normals), each period starting at the beginning of a decade (e.g., 1991). The app compares two sets of NOAA Climate at a Glance data using a Student’s t-Test to check if there is a significant difference in the sets at a specified (95%) level of confidence, which corresponds to IPCC’s “Extremely Likely” category. Evidence of a statistically significant difference is interpreted to be consistent with climate change. Lack of such evidence is assumed to be consistent with a steady climate marked by random natural variability.
All AMS courses, including AMS Climate Studies and DataStreme ECS, focus on the usage of real world and current data as learning tools. Certain learning tools, such as the AMS CAGApp are initiated by AMS staff with NOAA and university partners, and we also incorporate other publicly available online visualization tools, such as the Ohio State University’s Fluid Earth Viewer and National Drought Monitor visualizations into our courses. With updates made to certain materials on an annual basis and Current Studies available weekly during fall and spring semesters, AMS continues to seek new ways to incorporate online learning tools into course investigations.
Climate change, as defined by NOAA, is “a long-term shift in the statistics of the weather (including its averages).” The AMS CAGApp enables educators and students to objectively evaluate data from a particular parameter, such as average annual temperature or heating degree days, at a particular station for two non-overlapping 30-year periods (in keeping with the time interval used for calculating climate normals), each period starting at the beginning of a decade (e.g., 1991). The app compares two sets of NOAA Climate at a Glance data using a Student’s t-Test to check if there is a significant difference in the sets at a specified (95%) level of confidence, which corresponds to IPCC’s “Extremely Likely” category. Evidence of a statistically significant difference is interpreted to be consistent with climate change. Lack of such evidence is assumed to be consistent with a steady climate marked by random natural variability.
All AMS courses, including AMS Climate Studies and DataStreme ECS, focus on the usage of real world and current data as learning tools. Certain learning tools, such as the AMS CAGApp are initiated by AMS staff with NOAA and university partners, and we also incorporate other publicly available online visualization tools, such as the Ohio State University’s Fluid Earth Viewer and National Drought Monitor visualizations into our courses. With updates made to certain materials on an annual basis and Current Studies available weekly during fall and spring semesters, AMS continues to seek new ways to incorporate online learning tools into course investigations.
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