Learn about environmental issues, their effect on your community and actions for your involvement.

Reconnect with your environmentSP19371

Check out these websitesto learn more:

www.climate.gov/#educationwww.seagrant.psu.edu/extension/

climatechange.htmwww.sos.noaa.gov/datasets/

Atmosphere/

Start a collection of articlesabout climate change. Separatethem into local, state andcountry. Do the articlesprovide facts or arethey someone’sopinion? Can you findscientific informationthat backs up the facts?Its important to makesure your source isknowledgeable andtrustworthy.

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO/Anna McCartney

Alicia Castorena and Abby Hakel go green for the holidays.

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO/Anna McCartney

Matthew Calhoun shows off some pie-plate peace ornaments.

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO/Anna McCartney

North East student Macy Putnam likes the recycled decorations.

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO/Anna McCartney

Bastian Pierce finds newspapers useful for origami ornaments.

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO/Anna McCartney

Austin Roache likes the bright idea of recycling Capri Sun bags.

CONTRIBUTED ILLUSTRATION/NASA

The differences between Earth and its nearest planetary neighbors, Venus and Mars, have been termed the “Goldilocks Principle” — Venus istoo hot, Mars is too cold, but Earth is just right. Earth is rare in the solar system because its atmosphere can support life. The sun, far left, andits inner planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth and its moon and Mars, are shown here.

Faced with a choice of whichplanet to inhabit, Goldilockswould certainly pick the Earthover Venus, which is too hot, orMars, which is too cold.

Like the story of “Goldilocksand the Three Bears,” the choic-esGoldilocksmakeswillhaveanimpact on planet Earth, which israreintheuniverse.Understand-ing how Earth’s systems stay inbalance will help Goldilocksmake good choices.

Only Earth has an average sur-face temperature that is suitableforhumansandotherearthlylife-forms. While our planet absorbsjust the right amount of solar ra-diation because it orbits at justthe right distance from the sun,it also has just the right kind ofatmosphere.

Our atmosphere includes aninsulating blanket made up ofatmospheric gases just the rightthickness to trap sufficient solarenergy and maintain a pleasantglobal average temperature. OnMars, thisblanketistoothin,andon Venus it’s way too thick, mak-ing these planets uninhabitable.Theaveragesurfacetemperatureof Earth is 15 degrees Celsius or59 degrees Fahrenheit.

High today? 860 degrees!

Venus has a rich carbon diox-ide (CO2) atmosphere and thickclouds of sulfur dioxide (SO2)thatgeneratethestrongestgreen-house effect in the solar system,creating surface temperatureshigher than 460 °C (860 °F). OnMars, temperatures can dropfrom a high of 21°C (70 °F) at mid-day to -78°C (- 110 °F) the samenight. That represents a changeof 180 °F every day.

Earth’s atmospheric pressureis almost midway between thatof Venus and Mars (1/90th that ofVenusand100timesthatofMars).Its normal CO2 concentration ismuchlessthaneitherofthesetwoplanets. In fact, on Earth, CO2 isconsidered a trace gas sinceEarth’s atmosphere is made upof 99.8 percent nitrogen (N2) andoxygen (O2).

UnlikeN2andO2,theCO2andother trace gases trap heat in theatmosphereliketheglasswallsofa greenhouse. CO2, water vapor(H2O),methane(CH4)andnitrousoxide (N2O) are called “green-house gases.”

When this blanket is the rightthickness and the atmosphericpressure is just right, the energyfrom the sun’s visible light is ab-sorbed by land, oceans and veg-

etation during the day. This en-ergy is kept from radiating backinto space and rapidly plungingtheplanet’ssurfacebelowzeroatnight by the “greenhouse gases.”They absorb and reradiate theheat in all directions. This pro-vides the Earth with tempera-tures suited to our dynamic andcomplex biosphere.

This “greenhouse effect” wasfirst used in the early 1800s todescribe the naturally occurringfunctionsoftheatmospherictracegases. Because this greenhouseeffect produces livable tempera-

tures and because life on Earthis continually producing oxygenthrough photosynthesis and re-moving and recirculating CO2,Earth’s atmosphere stays fairlystable. Without that balance, ourplanet could become more likeVenus or Mars.

Understanding local, regionaland global albedo (the percent-age of the solar energy that is re-flected back by a surface) is alsocritical to predicting global cli-matechange.Oceansurfaces,icecaps, forests, grasslands, desertsandcitiesabsorb,reflectandgive

off radiation differently. A whiteglacier strongly reflects sunlightbackintospace,resultinginmini-malsurfaceorloweratmosphericheating, whereas a dark desertsoilabsorbsthatsunlight,causinga significant increase in surfaceand lower atmospheric heating.

Cloudcoveralsoaffectsgreen-house warming by reducing theamount of solar radiation thatreaches the Earth’s surface andreducingtheamountofradiationenergy emitted into space.

It’s important to note that thegreenhouse effect itself is notthe culprit causing acceleratedglobal warming. It’s the choicesGoldilocksandbillionsofpeopleliving on the planet make thatare contributing to our currentclimate-change scenario.

Normally it takes nature thou-sands of years to create severaldegrees of sustained global tem-peraturechange.Butinacenturyorless,wehavecreatedexcessiveamountsofCO2byburningfossilfuels that were underground formillions of years. These CO2 lev-els are scientifically measuredandrecordedbyhundredsofsta-tions across the globe, all report-ing the same upward trend.

Truth and consequences

Becausethesystemcannotab-sorb the increase naturally, weare seeing the consequences ofthese human-produced surplusgreenhouse gases.

Excess CO2 emissions lead tohotterconditions,moredroughtsand mass extinctions of coralreefs. Glaciers are melting, theocean is warming and becomingmoreacidic,andpolarbearsandmanyotherspeciesareindangerof extinction globally and locallybecause they cannot adapt onsuch short time scales.

While Goldilocks and manyothers may be confused by whatthey hear or read about climatechange,iftheysticktothescientif-ic facts, theycanbegintoreversethe huge amounts of greenhousegases that are being added to theatmosphere every day.

In the coming weeks, we willexaminemorefactsaboutgreen-house gases and changing cli-mate, what others are doing andwhat you can do to combat theseproblems.

To extend today’s learning,teacherscanfindlessonsatwww.goerie.com/nie.

A N N A M C C A R T N E Y, acommunications and educationspecialist for Pennsylvania SeaGrant, can be reached by e-mail ataxm40@psu.edu.

Our bearable climateGoldilock’s tale helps explain earth’s livability

and why scientists worry about global warmingBy ANNA MCCARTNEYContributing writer

CONTRIBUTED ILLUSTRATION

The Earth’s atmosphere is composed of greenhouse gases of just theright types and in just the right amounts. Without that balance, ourplanet could become more like Venus or Mars.

CONTRIBUTED ILLUSTRATION

Carbon constantly cycles from the air into plants and soil, and backinto the air. Global warming is largely a result of an imbalancedcarbon cycle. In just 100 years, humans have upset that balance byincreasing CO2 to levels not experienced in millions of years, byburning ancient carbon found in fossil fuels.

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CONTRIBUTED PHOTO/Anna McCartney

Skylar Daily’s angel from heaven is Earth-friendly.

North East Middle Schoolstudents greeted parents, visi-tors and school board membersat their school last week with aChristmas wish for a greenerplanet.

Large pie-plate peace orna-ments, plastic juice bottle anglesand snowmen, and Erie Times-News origami were just some of

the creative ways students madetheir point that recycling is im-portant but it can also be fun.

Theentireschoolparticipatedinmakingdecorationsfromrecy-cled materials for artificial treesthat were kept out of landfills.Student creativity was matchedby their enthusiasm for protect-ing the planet.

Won’tyoujointhembymakingan effort to recycle at your home,school or workplace?

Youngsters strivefor greener planetBy ANNA MCCARTNEYContributing writer

Tuesday, December 21, 2010 | Erie Times-News | GoErie.com | 3D