How Is Climate Change Impacting Weather?

Written By Teacher: Greta Stacy

Greta Stacy is a high school science teacher in Doha, Qatar. She has previously taught in Ecuador and the United States.

As extreme weather events have become more common and more severe, many students may feel worried about how these changes impact their communities and curious about why this is happening. This Extreme Weather Lesson: Are Winters Getting Worse? can help students explore how climate change isn’t just making everywhere on Earth warmer all the time. For a bilingual setting, this math unit in Spanish allows students to investigate the connections between climate change and severe storms in New Jersey, while also learning about solutions to protect their communities from erosion. Extreme weather can be a sensitive topic for students whose lives may have been impacted by these events, and you should look to include time in the lesson for students to share their experiences and feelings.   

Written By: MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative

The MIT Climate Change Engagement Program, a part of MIT Climate HQ, provides the public with nonpartisan, easy-to-understand, and scientifically-grounded information on climate change and its solutions.

The Earth has warmed roughly 1.8 ℉ since 1850. This means that people almost everywhere are, on average, experiencing warmer weather. But this rise in temperature is also changing humidity and rainfall, with consequences for extreme weather events, says Professor Paul O’Gorman of the MIT Program in Atmospheres, Oceans and Climate.

Warmer weather is causing more humidity. We often think about how humid it feels outside: that muggy feeling is caused by a high amount of water vapor in the air. And warmer air can hold more water; in fact, says O’Gorman, humidity rises about 3.5% for every degree Fahrenheit that the temperature rises. The higher the humidity, the harder it is for our bodies to cool off by sweating, which can be uncomfortable but also increases health risks from exhaustion, fainting, and even life-threatening heat stroke.