Geog. 143 -- Global Environmental Change

Exercise 1 -- Exploring the Course Readings and Information Sources on Global Environmental Change

This exercise involves a rather straightforward exploration of some of the readings associated with the course, mainly to gain familiarity with the sources of the readings and working with them as Adobe Acrobat .pdf files.  The readings will generally be available through the Blackboard course page, but for this exercises, links will be given here.  Answer each of the following questions (e.g. Q1, Q2, etc.) with a short sentence.

1.  Global Change Research

The International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme is the principal international research organization whose aim is to coordinate the broad array of research on global environmental change.  It is not a funding agency, like the U.S. National Science Foundation or the U.K. Natural Environmental Research Council, but instead works by organizing research programs, publications and so on.  As its name suggests, a major component of global change is the biosphere.

The IGBP web site is at http://www.igbp.net/ 

Open the IGBP Brochure on the lower right-hand side of the page by clicking on the cover, and then opening the .pdf file that appears as a link on the IGBP Brochure page.  Here's a direct link that will open a .pdf in a new browser window:  http://www.igbp.net/documents/IGBP-Brochure.pdf

Q1:  What are a couple of the major research questions that the IGBP is working on?  Do these questions focus on one component of the Earth system at a time, or do they focus more on the interactions between systems, or both?

2.  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

The IPCC is the main organization that focuses specifically on climate change  It was organized to provide input to international discussions focused on the challenge of "avoiding dangerous climate change."  The IPCC web site is at http://www.ipcc.ch  This web page describes the activities of the IPCC, as well as links to the IPCC Assessments, such as the 2007 Assessment that is currently being released, as well as other reports and publications.

Follow the links to the "About IPCC" page (http://www.ipcc.ch/about/index.htm), and also take a look at the "Fact Sheets" (in the language of your choice).

Q2:  What organizations established and "run" the IPCC?  How are the IPCC reports prepared (in particular, where does the information in the reports come from)?

While on the IPCC main web page, look for the "Summary for Policymakers" of the "AR4" (Assessment Report 4) which will provide some of the readings for the first part of the course, and also take a look at the the Third Assessment Report (TAR) "Climate Change 2001," the version that is being superseded by the AR4.

3.  Global Land-Cover Change

The book One Planet Many People, Atlas of Our Changing Environment is available in electronic form at http://na.unep.net/OnePlanetManyPeople/index.php  The book/web page is a collaboration between the UN Environment Programme, NASA, and the U.S. Geological Survey.  Find the link to the Chapters, and note that individual chapters are available as both low-resolution and high-resolution versions.  On campus, or with a fast Internet connection, the high-resolution images are not too large to easily download and view.

Take a look at chapter 1, and find Fig. 1.3.

Q3:  What is the "message" of this figure?  What idea is being displayed, and what particular information would you need to construct a figure like this (not considering the pretty globes).

While you're on the OP/MP web page, take a look at Interactive Maps web page, and in particular the "Atlas of Our Changing Environment on Google Maps".  Las Vegas is pretty interesting....

4.  Population and the Environment

The American Association for the Advancement of Science put together the AAAS Atlas of Population and Environment (http://atlas.aaas.org/), which attempts to make the connection between environmental issues and population distribution.  After browsing to the atlas home page and clicking on the cover image, the introduction and concise table of contents appears.  Click on "PART 2:  ATLAS" and browse to the "Energy" section.  Click on the "primary energy consumption and production" map.  This map provides examples of "cartograms" in this case outlines of individual countries scaled to represent something.

Q4:  What is this map attempting to show?  (This map provides an example of an "easy to see, hard to describe" type of relationship that makes the case for the use of good cartographic design and visualization methods to get complicated ideas across. Don't worry if your description of what the map is attempting to show is kind of clunky.)

While you're on the Population and Environment atlas page, browse around to see what other information it provides.