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Large numbers of Americans of all ages are interested in learning more about climate change education (CCE) (Perkins et al. 2017) and high schools have the opportunity to contribute to that learning. The "Next Generation Science Standards" (NGSS Lead States 2013) attempt to address climate change for high school students across disciplines. Despite the presence of climate change in NGSS, most high schools do not dedicate a class specifically to climate change or even to Earth Science. This leaves the burden of CCE to physics, chemistry, and biology classes, which often make space for it by mentioning the topic in ancillary form. To leave students with applicable knowledge, CCE must be interdisciplinary. This allows students to address the most important questions--ones left out when CCE is just taught from an Earth Science perspective--such as "How might farmers adapt to changing climatic conditions? How might such adaptations affect the price of staple foods, such as corn or wheat?" (Monroe, Oxarart, and Plate 2013). Many articles reference what CCE should do (Chang and Pascua 2017; Monroe, Oxarart, and Plate 2013; Monroe et al. 2017; Reid 2019; Schreiner, Henriksen, and Kirkeby Hansen 2005; Stapleton 2019). None of these lists can be accomplished in passing. A stand-alone climate change course provides time for students to develop needed synthesis and skills and allows teachers in other classes to address climate change as it naturally comes up. In this case study, the authors provide evidence of that demand and propose a path for schools to deliver on it.

Foodborne diseases have large economic and societal impacts worldwide. To evaluate how the risks of foodborne diseases might change in response to climate change, credible and usable climate information tailored to the specific application question is needed. Global Climate Model (GCM) data generally need to, both, be downscaled to the scales of the application to be usable, and represent, well, the key characteristics that inflict health impacts. This study presents an evaluation of temperature-based heat indices for the Washington D.C. area derived from statistically downscaled GCM simulations for 1971-2000--a necessary step in establishing the credibility of these data. The indices approximate high weekly mean temperatures linked previously to occurrences of Salmonella infections. Due to bias-correction, included in the Asynchronous Regional Regression Model (ARRM) and the Bias Correction Constructed Analogs (BCCA) downscaling methods, the observed 30-year means of the heat indices were reproduced reasonably well. In April and May, however, some of the statistically downscaled data misrepresent the increase in the number of hot days towards the summer months. This study demonstrates the dependence of the outcomes to the selection of downscaled climate data and the potential for misinterpretation of future estimates of Salmonella infections.

Analyses of simple models of moist tropical motion systems reveal that the column-mean moist static potential vorticity (MSPV) can explain their propagation and growth. The MSPV is akin to the equivalent PV except it uses moist static energy (MSE) instead of the equivalent potential temperature. Examination of an MSPV budget that is scaled for moist off-equatorial synoptic-scale systems reveals that α, the ratio between the vertical gradients of latent and dry static energies, describes the relative contribution of dry and moist advective processes to the evolution of MSPV. Horizontal advection of the moist component of MSPV, a process akin to horizontal MSE advection, governs the evolution of synoptic-scale systems in regions of high humidity. On the other hand, horizontal advection of dry PV predominates in a dry atmosphere. Derivation of a "moist static" wave activity density budget reveals that α also describes the relative importance of moist and dry processes to wave activity amplification and decay. Linear regression analysis of the MSPV budget in eastern Pacific easterly waves shows that the MSPV anomalies originate over the eastern Caribbean and propagate westward due to dry PV advection. They are amplified by the fluxes of the moist component of MSPV over the Caribbean Sea and over the eastern Pacific from 105° to 130°W, underscoring the importance of moist processes in these waves. On the other hand, dry PV convergence amplifies the waves from 90° to 100°W, likely as a result of the barotropic energy conversions that occur in this region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]