Lyric Abbott
December 10, 2016
Core Biology
Current Event #10
Watkins, Derek, and Henry Fountain. "Mapping Three Decades of Global Water Change." The New York Times. N.p., 09 Dec. 2016. Web.
Mapping Three Decades of Global Water Change
In the article Mapping Three Decades of Global Water Change published in The New York Times by Derek Watkins and Henry Fountain, it is stated that researchers have found that rivers, lakes and other bodies of water around the United States have changed dramatically over three decades, in a negative way. Scientists with the European Commission’s Joint Research Center in Italy, working with Google engineers, have used millions of satellite images to illustrate their finding on how these bodies of water have changed. This project allows researchers to improve climate models and find evidence of the effects of climate change around the world. Although, regardless of this technology, “even the untrained eye can see the results of drought in the Western United States, for example, or of warming temperatures in the high country north of the Himalayas.” In the Western United States, drought and growing populations have led to a drawdown in the region’s biggest reservoir, Lake Mead, Nevada. This drought in bodies of water could potentially start affecting many more parts of the world and could become a huge global issue for the future to come as humans become more reckless with things like pollution.
The discovery of drought across the United States leaves a huge affect on the world for many reasons. As humans, we are the ones who have caused this drought due to how we pollute bodies of water with things like trash or oil. Aside from the United States, in other parts of the world lakes are actually growing in places like China, India, and Brazil which is a rather positive aspect from the article. “Warming temperatures are melting East Asia’s glaciers, and large lakes have formed from the runoff” which is a good thing for other countries. The fear is that the drought in lakes, oceans, reservoirs, etc will start occurring in other parts of the world like it currently is in the United States. “The project shows, in more detail than ever before, how nature and people, including human-induced climate change, alter the pathways of water covering about a million square miles of Earth's land surface. Even a simple activity, like digging river sand, can alter the landscape.” Overall the hope is that the drought in these bodies of water in the United States does not start occurring in other places around the world and that the pollution which is probably what is causing everything, decreases as well.
Overall I think this article was very well written and Watkins and Fountain provided me as the reader with a lot of facts about the negative change in rivers, lakes and other bodies of water in the United States. One strength of this article was how the authors included the satellite images of bodies of water in the US, Brazil, China, and India which helped me have a clearer idea of how important this occurrence is around the world. I thought one weakness to the article was that Watkins and Fountain did not really explain why bodies of water are decreasing in the United States and not other countries and I kind of had to assume it was due to pollution and reckless care of the environment by Americans. I think that this could have been improved and also I felt that he focused more on the project of the satellite images rather than the actual research so I think it would have been better to write more about the research since that was what the overall topic was about and what I was reading felt rather vague. In general though, I learned a lot more about the dramatic change in bodies of water across America over the past decade and how this could potentially be really bad for not only America but for the world.
Bridget Sands
ReplyDeleteMr. Ippolito
Core Bio H
Current Event 12
Hyperlink/ Citation found on article:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/09/science/mapping-three-decades-of-global-water-change.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront
Watkins, Derek, and Henry Fountain. "Mapping Three Decades of Global Water Change." The New York Times. N.p., 09 Dec. 2016. Web.
I read my classmate Lyric’s report on “Mapping Three Decades of Global Water Change”. Her report was about the satellite images of the world over the course of three decades, and how unfortunately they showed the clear effects of climate change. One thing that Lyric excelled in was the explanation of how the process works. She describes how researchers took and analyzed pictures of the world from a bird’s eye view over time, and can practically show the effects of pollution and climate change over time on a time-lapse sort of thing. She also created the seriousness of the problem very well. She told about how different things that were caused by climate change were hurting the environment, such as the drought in the Western United States, and how it is draining the water and drying out Lake Mead, in Nevada. Finally, she also provided a well-written explanation on how these problems could potentially spread and where they made go. She explained how they were concerned on the spread of the drought in the Western United States, and how the pictures may suggest that this could happen in other areas, including the north of the Himalayas. Apparently, their high temperatures have skyrocketed over the course of the three decades, making them more vulnerable to drought.
Although Lyric’s overall report was structured and written well, there were a few places where she struggled. For instance, she only singled in on one specific area that climate change had hurt, the drought. To emphasize the problem, she could’ve used multiple examples, and therefore bring not only more information into her report but more evidence of climate change itself. She also neglected to include information on how we, as a human race, could prevent the problem and try to fix it in the future. This again would bring emphasis to the importance of the problem and would perhaps spur people and push them to start changing their lifestyles, in order to help the earth.
When reading Lyric’s review, I had an “ah-ha moment”. This came when I realized that there was direct proof of climate change for 30 years. This is because there has been great debate in recent years on whether climate change is real or just an idea, but this, at least to me, proves it to be sadly true.
Alexander New
ReplyDeleteMr. Ippolito
Core Biology H
1/4/17
Citation:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/09/science/mapping-three-decades-of-global-water-change.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront
Watkins, Derek, and Henry Fountain. "Mapping Three Decades of Global Water Change." The
New York Times. N.p., 09 Dec. 2016. Web.
For my comment I read my classmate Lyric’s review of the article “Mapping Three Decades of Global Water Change”. This review focused mainly on the satellite images of the world over the course of three decades into the future. Sadly, these images revealed the devastating effects of pollution if we do not fix climate change soon. The first thing I liked about Lyric’s review was how she brought light to the importance of the problem. For example, she wrote about climate change is also affecting major weather patterns across the globe, like the droughts in the Western United States. These droughts are draining the water out of the plants living there and drying out Lake Mead in Nevada. Second, Lyric was very clear about her explanation of the process. She made this especially clear by describing how researchers took and analyzed pictures of the world from a bird’s eye view over time, and can practically show the effects of climate change using time lapse. Finally, she provided a thorough explanation on how these problems of drought can potentially spread to other parts of the world, such as the Northern Himalayas.
Even though Lyric’s review was well written, there is some room for improvement. To start, she mentioned all of these problems about climate change, but offered no solutions to these problems. She did not tells us how, as a human race, we could potentially stop these problems from occurring in the future. Also, Lyric only specified one specific place in the world that is having problems, while there are hundreds of problems around the world that are also important.
Overall, when I read Lyric’s review, I learned about the importance of climate change. There has been a great debate about the authenticity of climate change in the past decades, but now everyone almost unanimously agrees that climate change is very real and a problem that we must fix soon.
Samantha Huss
ReplyDeleteMr. Ippolito
D Block Odd
10 January 2016
Current Event 13 (Comment)
Citation:
Watkins, Derek, and Henry Fountain. "Mapping Three Decades of Global Water Change." The New
York Times. The New York Times, 09 Dec. 2016. Web. 10 Jan. 2017.
.
Lyric’s review of the article, "Mapping Three Decades of Global Water Change," was very well done. Specifically, she did a good job of summarizing the article to provide an accurate and clear description of the topic for the reader. Her summary was clear and easy and interesting to read. It was interesting, in part, because of the language which she used in her writing. Lyric did a great job of choosing a variation of word choice and sentence structure to keep her review interesting and intriguing to the reader. Finally, Lyric did a good job of providing sufficient evidence to support her claims. She quoted the article many times to back up and claims and ideas which she described in her review.
Although Lyric did a good job on her review, there were a few aspects which could be changes to improve the review overall. One of these being the mechanics of her writing. There were a few spelling and grammatical mistakes which could be avoided by rereading her review once or twice more to ensure she caught any mistakes. Also, her review was mainly factual and she didn’t elaborate very much on her own ideas or take the topic further. To make her review even better, she could have offered possible solutions or taken the ideas of the article further and provided her own interpretation.
Overall, Lyric wrote a great review of the article which was interesting to read and learn about. Specifically, it was very interesting to learn that climate change has been debated and in occurrence for at least 30 years. Finally, it is starting to become widely accepted as factual rather than up for debate. However, it was shocking to learn that it has been debated for three decades before this.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteMcKenna Stoltz
ReplyDeleteMr. Ippolito
Core Bio H
Current Event 1
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/09/science/mapping-three-decades-of-global-water-change.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront
Watkins, Derek, and Henry Fountain. "Mapping Three Decades of Global Water Change." The New York Times. N.p., 09 Dec. 2016. Web.
I read Lyric Abbott’s report on “Mapping Three Decades of Global Water Change.” The article discussed the effects of climate change on lakes and other bodies of water. The article also discussed how scientists found major changes in bodies of water over the last three decades. Throughout Lyric’s review she excelled in many things. First, she did an excellent job in describing the problems that have led to highly polluted bodies of water around the United States. She gave the example of how Lake Mead, Nevada has experienced a drawdown in the reservoir, due to pollution and a growing population. Secondly, she did a good job at explaining the effects a drought has on the world, so people will know how to try and prevent another one from happening. In her review, she gave the example of how people have caused the drought. Lastly, another aspect of her review that was well done was informing the reader that if something isn’t done droughts could start spreading across the world. She explained how scientists are afraid that the drought may be spreading to the Himalayas and across the Unites States. Overall, Lyric had many aspects to her review that were explained well.
Lyric’s overall review was structured and written well but there are a few aspects that could be improved upon. First, she could have included more evidence on how bodies of water have changed in a negative way. To improve upon this, she could have included facts on how the rivers have changed. By adding more facts she would have created a stronger argument to convince the reader. Another aspect in her review she could have made better is by including solutions to the problems. She talked about the problems that droughts cause but she never mentioned how as humans we can prevent this from happening. By including this information she would have left the readers with something they can do to improve the world. The flaws she had in her review are easily changeable, and overall she had a very well written piece.
The most striking piece of information in Lyric’s review was the fact that temperatures are rising north of the Himalaya Mountains. I had never realized that there were areas in the United States where temperatures were rising so dramatically. This fact really stuck out to me because it showed me that global warming may exist but more research still needs to be done. In conclusion, I really enjoyed reading Lyric’s review and I learned a lot of information about the pollution in bodies of water.
Zip Malley
ReplyDeleteMr. Ippolito
CoreBioH / Current Review #1 Comment
31 January 2017
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/09/science/mapping-three-decades-of-global-water-change.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront
This review of Derek Watkins and Henry Fountain’s New York Times article titled “Mapping Three Decades of Global Water Change” by classmate Lyric Abbot, was thoroughly examined and explained. Her report covered the changes happening in our world based on three satellite images. The images show the water level fluctuating over the last twenty years, giving clear evidence to support the ongoing crisis of climate change. Climate change and global warming have been involved in a huge debate over the last decade, with many people not believing, or not wanting to believe in this critical issue. Lyric did a fantastic job explaining the process taken by a researcher. She described the photo-taking process and the fact that the photos were taken from a bird’s eye view perspective, showing the evolution of the rivers over time. The time-lapse effect shows how dramatically the water levels are changing as the years progress. Lyric also provided the depth of this issue, and its effects globally. She mentioned the effects of global warming and climate change, talking about the drying lake in Nevada. She also quoted the article several times in her review, backing up her ideas that she described.
However, there were a couple of areas that Lyric could have improved in. Lyric explained the issue of climate change, but gave no solution to this global problem. She also could have given more reasons as to why this water level fluctuation is bad. Why is this movement in the bodies of water bad? What is wrong with this movement?
In Lyric’s review of this fantastic New York Times article, it was brought to my attention of how big of an issue global warming actually is. Many of the large coastal cities could get flooded, much of Florida in the south-eastern United States completely covered. In conclusion, Lyric did a fantastic job in explaining and evolving on such a moving topic.
Works Cited
Watkins, Derek, and Henry Fountain. "Mapping Three Decades of Global Water Change." The
New York Times. N.p., 09 Dec. 2016. Web.
Zip Malley
ReplyDeleteMr. Ippolito
CoreBioH / Current Review #1 Comment
31 January 2017
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/09/science/mapping-three-decades-of-global-water-change.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront
This review of Derek Watkins and Henry Fountain’s New York Times article titled “Mapping Three Decades of Global Water Change” by classmate Lyric Abbot, was thoroughly examined and explained. Her report covered the changes happening in our world based on three satellite images. The images show the water level fluctuating over the last twenty years, giving clear evidence to support the ongoing crisis of climate change. Climate change and global warming have been involved in a huge debate over the last decade, with many people not believing, or not wanting to believe in this critical issue. Lyric did a fantastic job explaining the process taken by a researcher. She described the photo-taking process and the fact that the photos were taken from a bird’s eye view perspective, showing the evolution of the rivers over time. The time-lapse effect shows how dramatically the water levels are changing as the years progress. Lyric also provided the depth of this issue, and its effects globally. She mentioned the effects of global warming and climate change, talking about the drying lake in Nevada. She also quoted the article several times in her review, backing up her ideas that she described.
However, there were a couple of areas that Lyric could have improved in. Lyric explained the issue of climate change, but gave no solution to this global problem. She also could have given more reasons as to why this water level fluctuation is bad. Why is this movement in the bodies of water bad? What is wrong with this movement?
In Lyric’s review of this fantastic New York Times article, it was brought to my attention of how big of an issue global warming actually is. Many of the large coastal cities could get flooded, much of Florida in the south-eastern United States completely covered. In conclusion, Lyric did a fantastic job in explaining and evolving on such a moving topic.
Works Cited
Watkins, Derek, and Henry Fountain. "Mapping Three Decades of Global Water Change." The
New York Times. N.p., 09 Dec. 2016. Web.