Reference no: EM133208937

Question: The objective for this activity is for the student to stimulate the effects of carbon emissions on the global temperature to see whether people can prevent Earth from warming more than 2C by the year 2100.

what changes could you make to limit the average global warming to +2.0 degrees Celsius by 2100? How you get there will be your choice. The simulation offers you advanced features to alter the model (see in the menu at the top where it says 'simulation' and go to 'assumptions'). This model has certain assumptions for the basic physical processes of global temperature (including such factors as ocean mixing, climate sensitivity, biomass loss from afforestation, etc...). If you want to you can alter these assumptions, but keep in mind that these parameters are probably set based upon empirical evidence and scientific measurements - so as a scientist you'd have to have a pretty good justification for altering them. But it's worth thinking about. Every model is based on assumptions - and if those assumptions are incorrect the model won't be of much use. Sometimes little errors in our model assumptions can have big effects on the accuracy of the prediction - just some food for thought as we go about exploring the simulation (and also consider the intense political debates on this subject). Solutions to the problem of global warming will involve considerable investment and economic sacrifice world-wide, so it's no wonder that it has become a political issue.

With the goal of limiting global warming to +2.0 degrees C, you should tweak the numbers for the six key players (US, EU, Other Developed countries, China, India, Other Developing Countries) to get to +2.0 degrees C or less by 2100. How will you do it?

How did you limit the increase in global temperature? Were there any key methods that altered the balance in your favor? about the actual practicalities (in the real world) of what you did. In other words, would it be possible to implement the changes you made in our world of real people? What economic sacrifices would have to be made by different countries to achieve your plan? What would be the biggest challenges politically in implementing your goal? Do you think your plan would have a chance of being enacted in our real world? what your energy sources of choice would be? Would you use all renewables? Nuclear power? Would poor countries be allowed to burn coal at all?