Climate Forcings and Feedbacks

Which climate forcings and feedbacks are most prevalent in either your local area or in the United States as a whole and why might this be so?  What resources have you located to help you and your students understand climate forcings and feedbacks?

I think that aerosols, smoke, and soot are probably the most prevalent climate forcings in the United States and in my local area.  Due to industry and manufacturing, which is very important to the economy in Ohio, smoke and soot are put into the atmosphere.  Many people also use some type of aerosol daily without realizing the negative impact that they have on global climate change.

In exploring the readings and resources for this week's session, I found many resources which I believe would be helpful to my students in understanding this sometimes hard to grasp topic.  My favorite, and what most helped my understanding was the NASA Climate Time Machine.  This allows students to see the impact of global climate change in a way they can understand and in a time period that seems relevant to them.  Most high school students don't care how global climate change will effect the world in 2000 years - they want to see how it will impact them.

I also found the Greenhouse Effect simulation to be very helpful and I believe it would also be very helpful to students.  Future Global Warming Impacts by Region would also be beneficial because students could see exactly how global climate change could effect them where they live.  I also believe that the videos would be beneficial to show students at the beginning of a global climate change unit in order to get them thinking about the impact of it.