1

Why do we care about the Keeling Curve?Lesson 1 Activity 3

2

OPTIONAL ACTIVITY: Your Climate Profile:

Take an anonymous quiz online: http://uw.kqed.org/climatesurvey/index-

kqed.php ORhttps://apps.facebook.com/climatesurvey/

3

Student Instructions for OPTIONAL activity

After you finish the quiz, circle your result on your card and give it to your teacher.

My climate profile is (circle 1):

AlarmedConcernedCautious

DisengagedDoubtful

Dismissive

After you have taken the quiz, return this to your teacher (do not write your name on it).

The Greenhouse Effect is a naturally occurring phenomenon that helps keep our planet warm. The greenhouse effect is important! It helps us survive.

The Greenhouse Effect: light energy enters the atmosphere. Light energy from the sun can pass through the atmosphere and go all the way to the earth’s surface.

The Greenhouse Effect: Light energy from the sun interacts with the earth’s surface, and is returned to the atmosphere in the form of

infrared radiation. Some of this energy is trapped by greenhouse gases, which keeps the earth warm. Some goes back to space.

The earth’s atmosphere contains many types of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide. When these greenhouse gases trap infrared

radiation, the planet stays warm.

Question: What do you think will happen to the temperature of the earth if we add more greenhouse

gases to the atmosphere?

When we burn fossil fuels, we add greenhouse gases to this atmosphere. These gases trap more infrared

radiation from the earth’s surface.

When greenhouse gases are added to the atmosphere, this causes the naturally occurring greenhouse effect to

heat the planet to unnatural temperatures (global warming), which causes our climate to change.

11

CO2 and Temperature