Podcast: TED Talks series - Rob Dunbar: Discovering Ancient Climates in Oceans and Ice

TED Talks

Summary

18:15 minutes

TED Talks series, FILMED APR 2010 - POSTED SEP 2010 - Mission Blue Voyage

Rob Dunbar hunts for data on our climate from 12,000 years ago, finding clues inside ancient seabeds and corals and inside ice sheets. His work is vital in setting baselines for fixing our current climate -- and in tracking the rise of deadly ocean acidification.

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Learning Goals

Dunbar uses marine research and findings to explore how the ancient climates and composition of the Earth can be used to help explain the science behind the climate crisis.

Context for Use

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Description and Teaching Materials

Corals are instrumental-quality recorders of change in the water. Our thermometers only take us back 50 years or so here. The coral can take us back hundreds and thousands of years." (Rob Dunbar)

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Teaching Notes and Tips

This material can be used to explore how the past climate and composition of the Earth can help explain the present climate and composition of Earth, and show how global warming began and continues to occur.

Assessment

​Assessment is at the discretion of the educator and how this material is applied.

References and Resources

Rob Dunbar looks deeply at ancient corals and sediments to study how the climate and the oceans have shifted over the past 50 to 12,000 years -- and how the Antarctic ecosystem is changing right now. Full Bio >>

Citation

Talks, T. (2012). Podcast: TED Talks series - Rob Dunbar: Discovering Ancient Climates in Oceans and Ice.