Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Conclusion

How do surface temperatures change from hour to hour and why? How does that affect climate change?

Depending on if it contains water, the color of the surface, what light it absorbs, and its albedo, a surface's temperature increases as the sun travels across the sky, producing solar radiation, and then decreases from dusk till dawn. Since concrete absorbs more energy than grass and cities contain much more asphalt than rural areas, more energy is released at night in cities in the form of long wave infrared radiation and heat. This creates a heat island effect where the greenhouse gasses prevents long wave infrared radiation from escaping the atmosphere and causes the area to become hotter than the surrounding rural areas. This greenhouse effect can cause the climate to slowly change to a warmer climate in that area. The energy that is absorbed and re-emitted is part of Earth's energy budget, or the amount of energy gained and given off by Earth.

Friday, August 17, 2012

How To Use The Scientific Method

The Scientific Method is a process used to solve problems. First, you develop a question or problem that can be solved through experimentation. Next, you make observations and research your topic of interest. The next step is predicting a possible answer to the problem. After that, you must develop and follow a procedure in which the outcome must be measurable. You may modify the procedure as needed. Confirm the results by retesting and includes tables, graphs, and photographs. Include a statement in your results that accepts or rejects the hypothesis. Make recommendations for further study and possible improvements to the procedure. Last of all, be prepared to present the project to an audience and expect questions.
We use the Scientific method every day when we make decisions. For example, if you are making a birthday cake and you are trying to decide what kind of mix to buy. Many people like butter flavored cake because it is the most common. Chocolate is good too but not everyone likes chocolate cake and chocolate icing together. You could choose strawberry cake but its not very common and not as many people like it. You decide to not get the strawberry or chocolate mix but there is more than one type of yellow cake. There is butter flavor, vanilla and yellow cake. Vanilla is too plain so you don't choose it. Yellow cake is mediocre so you vote no on it. So then you are left with butter flavored cake mix and the icing you picked out.
Making decisions is all about judging the pros and cons of each choice, much like the scientific method. You look at different answers and decide what is best. Thus, the scientific method is common sense mostly and is simplified for some circumstances. That is why you don't use every step just to decide on what to buy or what to make for dinner.