Averages, VaRiaBiLiTy, and EXTREMES in Weather and Climate

• This video shows how scientists use average temperature measurements and measurements of temperature variability to understand how the climate is shifting. 
• Students will see how global temperature distribution can be represented by a bell curve. When temperatures become more variable, the bell curve widens, and when average temperatures increase, the bell curve moves further down the axis. 

• This interesting video shows students how statistics can help us to understand changes in climate.
• The video uses easy-to-understand graphs to show the temperature data.

Additional Prerequisites

• Students should be familiar with statistics terms such as bell curves, probability, distribution, and spread.

Differentiation

• Math and statistics classes could use this video to show how climate scientists use statistics in real-world applications.
• In small groups, students could discuss the following questions:
  • Who will be affected by greater variability in the weather? Why?
  • What does a wider bell curve indicate in terms of variability?
  • Explain how higher average temperatures and greater temperature variability can both lead to extreme heat?
• Other resources on this topic include this NASA video that shows how land temperature anomaly distributions have changed, this TED video on why 1.5 degrees of global warming is a big deal, and this article on how increasing heat will change life on Earth.