RESEARCH PROBLEM TEMPLATE

(*) Introduce the issue to be studied.

The general public wants and needs to know if the global warming is actually a concern or not. In fact, there are a growing number of skeptics believing the climate change is a farce. To defeat this skepticism, a need for a clear line of communication between the scientific community and the general public is of paramount. The general public needs to know that the consequences will be disastrous if nothing is done to combat global warming. Today, if not yesterday, it is the job of scientists and politicians to find a middle ground to get to the bottom of the problem and hopefully find a viable solution. Also, they should inform people of what will happen if nothing is done to curb global warming.

(*) Introduce to background of the research area.

Global warming is a controversy since early 1990s when we began to see an alarming trend that the Earth is warming. Secondly, we have noticed some huge chunks of ice shelves being broken off Antarctica. We also see depletion of sea ice from the Arctic regions. Unfortunately, that is not enough to convince people. It does not help that the during winter of 2010, we have experienced a massive amount of snow from back to back snowstorms in which we do not see any hint of global warming.

What people do not understand is that global warming can cause extreme weathers. We have to act as if global warming is a potential runaway truck barreling down a hill with no brakes and do everything we can do stop this from happening.

(*) State the key issue, the overall research problem, and specific research question/s. There may be 1-3 separate questions connected to research problem area. Should be formulated in a very clear language in a form of a question.

What are the consequences that humankind will face if global warming progresses?
Will the sea level rise if all the ice melts or the ice melting will stop the thermohaline circulation and cause another ice age?
What exactly can we do to stop global warming from happening?

(*) Statement of relevance to the field. Define your audience of experts.

This research is mainly for scientists geared towards learning and understanding the climate change and its effects. Those scientists should understand not only the importance of understanding the Earth Dynamics but also know how to inform the public with small margins of error. These errors can and have cause skepticism, which defeats the purpose of educating the general public as well as politicians. At the same time, this is done to also reach out to anyone with desire to understand global warming and its consequences.

(*) Justify the research problem area with references to references to journal articles (and in some cases also popular articles) pinpointing the importance of the research area.

1. http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/watercycleice.html - Pertains to information about Cryosphere such a: Water Storage in Ice and Snow, Facts about glaciers and ice caps, and Influence of weather from ice caps.

2. http://nsidc.org/index.html – An official website – National Snow and Ice Data Center at University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado. It shows news and events as well as publications involving anything about earth’s cryosphere (ice, snow, ice caps, sea ice, ice sheets, etc)

3. http://www.glims.org/ - GLIMS – Global Land Ice Measurements from Space - A websites verifying sources of measurements of ice on land from space. Plethora of publications, data and news pertaining to world’s glaciers.

4. http://www.unep.org/geo/geo%5Fice/ - Global outlook for Ice and Snow. A website investigating the linkage between snow, ice and climate change.

5. http://ice.nasa.gov/ - NASA’s cryospheric science program – They monitor the sea ice and

6. http://www.arcus.org/arcss/ - The National Science Foundation’s Arctic System Science Program – studies the Polar Regions and its processes.

(*) Introduce your proposed methods of study, in brief, if you can at this time.

I plan on using all these websites and consolidating the facts hoping to find the real truth in climate change, global warming, and Earth and its cryosphere. Some of these websites will have different set of facts, data, and even opinion so I will have to find the most credible and sound arguments and present them in terms that not only scientist but an average person can understand.

(*) Introduce limitations of the study, if you can at this time.

Massive amounts of money and research grants has been poured into studying Earth and its Dynamics since the start of a concern for a global warming, especially when it comes to cryosphere. The limitations of this research is that as much as you can study and collect data, there can be only be strong evidences but at the end, no one really knows exactly what will happen to the Earth’s climate in the future. We can come up with concrete answers to what has happened in the past and maybe foresee its trends – only the consequences will be different because now there are billions of people on the planet.

(*) Include bibliography of sources. Provide in-text citations where appropriate.

http://www.glims.org/
http://nsidc.org/links/index.html
http://www.unep.ch/iuc/info/ccinfokit/Infokit%20-%202001.htm
http://www.unep.org/geo/geo%5Fice/
http://nasadaacs.eos.nasa.gov/articles/2008/2008_seaice.html


(*) Note scholarly publications (1-3 publications, by title) where you might be able to publish the resulting paper you would write.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience
http://nsidc.org/pubs/notes/
http://www.science.doe.gov/grants/