Thermal Microcosm: A Study of Climate Change and Its Causes

Overview

Objectives/Goals I simulated an earth-like climate system, applied temperature forcing agents and observed their relative effects on the system temperature. Methods/Materials I simulated the earth-like climate system with a 725ml spherical flask of water with a heat lamp pointed at it. I simulated two climate forcing agents: Greenhouse Effect (layers of bubble wrap around the flask) and Ice Cap Reflectivity (coverage of the "poles" with white electrical tape). Resulting in 5 configurations: - 0 layers bubble wrap, 0% cap coverage (CONTROL) - 0 layers bubble wrap, 25% cap coverage - 0 layers bubble wrap, 50% cap coverage - 1 layers bubble wrap, 0% cap coverage - 2 layers bubble wrap, 0% cap coverage I recorded the temperatures of each configuration until stabilized, then compared them. Results Temperature change relative to control, per configuration: - 4ºC 0 layers bubble wrap, 25% cap coverage - 9ºC 0 layers bubble wrap, 50% cap coverage + 2ºC 1 layers bubble wrap, 0% cap coverage + 2ºC 2 layers bubble wrap, 0% cap coverage Temperatures stabilized after 7-10 hours. Conclusions/Discussion My hypothesis that ice cap coverage would have greater effect on climate temperature proved to be true. However my secondary hypothesis that increasing a forcing agent would further increase the change in temperature was not supported; the addition of a second layer of bubblewrap yielded no further change in temperature than a single layer of bubblewrap. Extending these findings to draw conclusions about the earth's climate would be an oversimplification of the earth climate system and it's temperature forcing agents. The earth's climate is far more complex and there are many forcing agents I didn't account for in my simulation.

Awards (1)

• Honorable Mention

Competition history

• CSEF 2015 Earth & Atmospheric Sciences (Junior Division Only) · Entry J0811

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

• All Earth and Environmental Sciences projects
• CSEF Earth and Environmental Sciences projects
• Every CSEF 2015 project