ISAT 300 Semester Project

Measuring the Temperature of Harrisonburg and Examining Historical Data

Purpose

At its core, ISAT 300 is about, how we use data for informed decision making (@fig_decision_making):

Measurements for Decision Making Workflow from ISAT lecture{#fig_decision_making, fig-alt=“Data informed decising making connects measurements and data for decision making. Data needs to fulfill certain criteria to be useful for decision making, such as being accurate, precise, and representative. Applied computing contributes to the data analysis and visualization that is needed for data to be useful.”}

Over the course of the six lab experiments, you have applied fundamental measurement concepts during the collection and analysis of data.

The purpose of this laboratory exercise is to further our understanding of these fundamental measurement concepts, data acquisition, and data analysis techniques. These concepts are broadly applicable in many different arenas, but we will be focusing on ambient temperature measurements and discussing how they relate to global temperature measurements and the challenge of climate change.

Learning Goals

The goals of this project are to:

  • Investigate and evaluate challenges and opportunities for measuring ambient temperature
  • Understand how to setup and deploy a remote data logging instrument
  • Be able to retrieve, analyze, and present data from a remote logging instrument across a range of platforms
  • Describe the uncertainty associated with individual and multi-source temperature measurements for a given region
  • Recognize how data acquisition has changed over time, specifically for global temperature measurements
  • Acquire and analyze historical data from trusted sources to draw your own conclusions
  • Report your findings in a formal lab report

Background

Global climate change has been described as the most challenging problem facing society. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations to provide scientific assessments of climate change (who continue to provide funding for it). The IPCC has become the leading authority on Climate Change and provides broad public policy recommendations. It does not conduct independent research; instead, it conducts systematic reviews of relevant published data from the scientific community.

Since the First Assessment Report that was completed in 1990 and that predicted a rise of 0.3 \(^\circ\)C rise in global temperature per decade during the 21st century, the reports have become more comprehensive and have been increasingly focusing on the effects of warming and other global changes on humans and ecosystems alike.

The Fifth Assessment Report was completed in 2014. This report concludes that atmospheric CO2 concentrations increased to their highest levels of the past 800,000 years and that this will result in severe, pervasive, and irreversible impacts. Mean global temperatures will increase by 3.7 to 4.8 \(^\circ\)C by the year 2100. Mitigation strategies pledged in the Cancun agreements are likely (66-100%) to keep global temperature rise below 3 \(^\circ\)C.

The Sixth Assessment Report was completed in 2023. Results conclude that human-caused climate warming is certain and that limiting warming to below 1.5 \(^\circ\)C requires a 50% reduction in global climate warming gas emissions by 2050.

The 5th U.S. National Climate Assessment, published in 2023 by the U.S. Climate Research Program, summarizes climate change impacts, risks, and responses for the U.S.

Figure 1.1. (top left) Changes in multiple aspects of climate are apparent in every US region. The five maps present observed changes for five temperature, precipitation, and sea level rise metrics: 1) warming is apparent in every region (based on changes in annual average temperature in 2002–2021 compared to the 1901–1960 average for the contiguous United States, Hawai‘i, and Puerto Rico and to 1925–1960 for Alaska); 2) the number of warm nights per year (days with minimum temperatures at or above 70°F in 2002–2021 compared to 1901–1960) is increasing everywhere except the Northern Great Plains, where they have decreased, and in Alaska, where nights above 70°F are not common; 3) average annual precipitation is increasing in most regions, except in the Northwest, Southwest, and Hawai‘i, where precipitation has decreased (same time periods as annual average temperature); 4) heavy precipitation events are increasing everywhere except Hawai‘i and the US Caribbean, where there has been a decrease (trends over the period 1958–2021); and 5) relative sea levels are increasing along much of the US coast except in Oregon, Washington, and Alaska, where there is a mix of both increases and decreases (trends over 1990–2020). {2.2, 9.1; Figures 2.4, 2.5, 2.7, 2.8} (top center) Every fraction of a degree of additional warming will lead to increasing risks across multiple sectors in the US (see Table 1.2 and “Current and Future Climate Risks to the United States” below). Without rapid, substantial reductions in the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, these climate risks in the US are expected to increase. (top right) People born in North America in 2020, on average, will be exposed to more climate-related hazards compared to people born in 1965. How many more extreme climate events current generations experience compared to previous generations will depend on the level of future warming. {Figure 15.4} (bottom left) This climate stripes chart shows the observed changes in US annual average surface temperature for 1951–2022 and projected changes in temperature for 2023–2095 for five climate scenarios, ranging from a very high scenario, where greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase through most of the century, to a very low scenario, where emissions decline rapidly, reaching net zero by around midcentury (see Figure 1.4 and Table 3 in the Guide to the Report). Each vertical stripe represents the observed or projected change in temperature for a given year compared to the 1951–1980 average; changes are averaged over all 50 states and Puerto Rico but do not include data for the US-Affiliated Pacific Islands and the US Virgin Islands (see also Figure 1.13).(bottom right) Although climate benefits from even the most aggressive emissions cuts may not be detectable before the middle of the century, there are many other potential near-term benefits and opportunities from actions that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. {2.3, 8.3, 10.3, 13.3, 14.5, 15.3, 19.1, 31.3, 32.4}Figure credits: (top left, top center, top right, bottom right) USGCRP, USGCRP/ICF, NOAA NCEI, and CISESS NC; (bottom left) adapted from panel (c)of Figure SPM.1 in IPCC 2023.

Climate change presents risks while action to limit warming and reduce risks presents opportunities for the US. (5th U.S. National Climate Assessment, 2023; Ch. 1: Overview)

The 5th National Climate Assessment concludes that:

It is unequivocal that human activities have increased atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. It is also unequivocal that global average temperature has risen in response. Observed warming over the continental United States and Alaska is higher than the global average (virtually certain, very high confidence)1 . Long-term changes have been observed in many other aspects of the climate system (very high confidence). The Earth system is complex and interconnected, which means changes in faraway regions are virtually certain to affect the United States (very high confidence).

The change is climate is linked to increasing weather related disasters and strong changes in hot and cold extremes:

Figure 2.7. Over much of the country, the risk of warm nights has increased while the risk of cold days has decreased. The risk of hot days has also increased across the western US. This figure shows the observed change in the number of (a) hot days (days at or above 95°F), (b) cold days (days at or below 32°F), and (c) warm nights(nights at or above 70°F) over the period 2002–2021 relative to 1901–1960 (1951–1980 for Alaska and Hawai‘i and 1956–1980 for Puerto Rico). Data were not available for the US-Affiliated Pacific Islands and the US Virgin Islands. Figure credit: Project Drawdown, Washington State University Vancouver, NOAA NCEI, and CISESS NC.

Hot days have increased in the West, hot nights have increased nearly everywhere, and cold days have decreased. (5th U.S. National Climate Assessment, 2023; Ch. 2: Climate Trends)

All these efforts to understand climate change, its impacts, and to model future climate variability are possible, because of climate and weather observations that are conducted all over the world.

More than 100,000 weather stations all over the globe are integrated into datasets that summarize how the climate has since the late 19th century:

Comparison of aggregated temperature records, NASA Earth Observatory

Think about what this means for the measurements:

  • How can we ensure that observations are accurate and representative of global temperature?
  • What are the uncertainties of the temperature record?
  • How has climate changed locally?

Our semester project will address some of the questions.

Footnotes

  1. The 5th National Climate Assessment considers a likelihood of >99% as virtually certain and assigns very high confidence to findings with “Strong evidence (established theory, multiple sources, well-documented and accepted methods, etc.)” and “High Consensus”.↩︎