What climate change means for the Hudson River

Preparation:

Students should be familiar with the concept of global warming and have basic graphing skills using Excel if you choose the first option.   An Excel tutorial is provided within the Changing Hudson Project site.

Engage: 

Ask: What do you know about global warming?  What types of impacts have you heard about or seen?  Show students photos of global change—melting glaciers, flooding, and precipitation changes.  Use the PowerPoint titled “Climate Change” for images.  If students have not had much background on the science of climate change, you can spend more time on this using the powerpoint.   Ask:  What types of changes might you expect in the Hudson Valley if temperatures continue to increase?  Make a list on the board of student ideas.  This can be done as a K-W-L chart or a conceptual circle if appropriate. 

Explore:

There are two options for this lesson, depending on whether you want your students to have more experience with graphing data.  If this is not an objective for your class, use Option 2. 

Lead a discussion with students based on the “Human Accelerated Environmental Change” diagram by Dr. Gene Likens.  Ask students to talk about the ways in which human impacts can affect animal populations.  They may conduct research to construct a conceptual circle focusing on fish or amphibians. 

Explain:

According to data compiled and analyzed at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, the Hudson River has become warmer over the last 60 years.  These data were collected daily at the Poughkeepsie Water Treatment Facility, and three USGS survey sites Poughkeepsie [01372058] (https://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/inventory/?site_no=01372058 ), South Dock at West Point [01374019] (https://waterdata.usgs.gov/ny/nwis/uv/?site_no=01374019&PARAmeter_cd=72… ), and south of Hastings on Hudson [01376304] (https://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/dv?referred_module=sw&site_no=01376304 ).  The data were then averaged to create daily and monthly means. 

            Although no correlation studies have been done between the decrease in certain fish species and the increasing temperature of the Hudson River, it has been suggested by a number of scientists that this is a distinct possibility.  In a paper by Daniels et al. 2005, the tomcod’s temperature sensitivity is listed as a possible reason for its disappearance from the Hudson.  Once found as far south as North Carolina, it is now rarely found even in the Hudson.  Atlantic Tomcod and Rainbow smelt require cold water for breeding, and are already at the southern portion of their range in the Hudson River.  According to John Waldman, a biology professor at Queens College in New York who has long been involved in Hudson River issues, between 1996 and 2000, yearly sampling for smelt in the Hudson produced a total of 4 fish. 

            The data from the Gibbs & Breisch 2001 study shows a change in breeding times for a variety of local amphibians, many of whom are now starting ‘calling’ up to two weeks earlier than one hundred years ago. 

Extend:

• Students can graph two other air temperature data sets: “Student Maximum Air Temp Poughkeepsie” and “Student Minimum Air Temp Poughkeepsie.” 
• Students could also graph more than one location across the country or at different elevations in New York and compare the rate of temperature changes.                                                                         See: https://cdiac.ess-dive.lbl.gov/epubs/ndp/ushcn/ushcn.html  (US Historical Climatology Network web interface). 
• Students could compare temperature graphs to CO2 level graphs on a global basis here: https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/ (NOAA Global Monitoring Carbon Cycling Network). 
• Encourage students to conduct further research into possible impacts including sea level rise, impacts on wetlands, the movement of the salt front in the river, and weather patterns that could impact drinking water.

Evaluate:

Use student answers on the worksheets to assess their understanding.  Students should be able to discuss the implications of climate change on some of the local organisms.