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Earth’s Changing Climates (Activity 2)
1. What do the colors indicate about the change in average temperature over time from 1884 to 2012?
2. In the past 50 years, where has the temperature changed the most?
3. Describe the average temperature change from 1880 to 2010.
4. Why is the curve between 1950 and 1980 relatively flat and centered around zero degrees difference
from the baseline? (Hint: how is the temperature change being compared over time?)
5. The green bars are called "error bars." They indicate the range of uncertainty that scientists have
about the data on the graph. (Note: Not all error bars are shown.) Why do you think these error bars
are smaller near the year 2000 than in the 1890s?
6. Why is the black line so much more variable than the red line? What's the difference between the
data they show?
7. Draw a sketch of the graph with your prediction.
8. Explain why you drew the prediction curve as you did.
9. How certain are you about your prediction based on your explanation?
10. Explain what influenced your certainty rating.
11. Why do you think the winter layers are darker than the summer layers in the ice core?
12. The trend in the graph shows short warm periods between long periods of highly variable cold
climate. Which statement is supported by the information in the graph?
a. The graph shows that the temperature for the past 10,000 years, compared with the previous
400,000 years, has been
i. Getting warmer ii) staying fairly stable iii) getting colder
13. Describe how current climate trends (from 1880 to 2010) might change the pattern of warming and
cooling shown on the Vostok ice core graph.
14. Explain how scientists can be both fairly certain that Earth is warming and still actively researching the
unknown factors.