Research Proposal Sentence Outline

Climate Change Outline

The research question for this report will be just how settled the climate change debate is.

Mass majority of scientists agree that anthropogenic (human activity) global warming is contributing to at least some of the increase in temperature around the world

There is some disagreement, however, on how much of the temperature swings are man-induced and how much are naturally occurring.

The theories surrounding global temperature have evolved over the years

There was a period of time in the 1970's where scientists thought that the world was actually cooling. The subject even made the cover of Newsweek.

Through the use of ice cores, trees, dirt erosion patterns and so forth, the warming and cooling of recent millennia have been measured

The hottest recorded years in modern human history have occurred from the late 1990's until now

There have been temperature shifts back and forth for more than a dozen millennia.

Human history has been verified to go back at least two hundred thousand years but the data is very limited if one is going back any more than four to five thousand years due to the propensity for bodies, buildings and other items decaying over the years.

iv. The current period of warming, otherwise known as a Holocene, has been going on for nearly twelve thousand years. There have been minor temperature shifts throughout but there were major shifts before that

v. There have measured impacts on wildlife, plants and even humans as they try to live and survive

c. The political climate regarding climate change has been very hot and heavy in both the United States and around the rest of the world

i. There has been much talk of taxing and regulating carbon and other emissions.

ii. Some assert that the regulations and taxes are necessary so as to prevent the aggravation of weather events like hurricanes and to prevent rising sea levels. Sea levels, as an example, could wash away shorefront property and populaces around the world iii. There has also been a major political shift to energy technologies that are more efficient and earth-friendly

1. Examples of car technology would include battery-powered cars, cars that run on hydrogen fuel cells and those that run on natural gas. There are even fuels that are 85% corn, which is otherwise known as E-85.

2. Standard electricity examples would include the (controversial) use of nuclear, wind power, hydroelectric and so forth.

iv. Some political powers and advocates have suggested that the climate is entirely too complex for us to imagine, that it is too early in the research game to react and/or that global warming taxes and regulations in general are just a power grab from greedy politicians that want to control and tax people

III. Method

a. The method for this research study will be a literature review of both quantitative and qualitative sources.

i. The quantitative data would include things like temperature trends, rainfall changes, shifts in the icepack on the poles, sea levels and so forth.

ii. Qualitative data would be more anecdotal and analysis-driven data that focuses less on numbers and more on theory.

IV. Implications & Limitations

a. Any review or assessment of global warming is going to be at least somewhat based in theory due to the sheer size and complexity of the environment and the factors that influence the same.

b. Factors that influence the Earth and its temperature would include the gravitational pull of the Moon, rays from our Sun, cloud formation and dissipation, rain patterns, evaporation patterns, weather patterns in general, and so forth.

c. Meteorologists cannot predict weather reliably a few days to a week out so predicting temperature worldwide or in a given place over tens or hundreds of years would be much more complex

d. Even so, it is clear that human activity is having an influence. The question to be answered is how much, the effects that will be rendered, what can be prevented and what cannot be prevented.

e. It has to be at least considered that we do not have enough data to act in an informed manner