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\centerline{MONT 104N -- Modeling the Environment}
\centerline{First ``Debates'' Day}
\centerline{October 1, 2012}
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{\it Presenters}
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Oriola Arapi, Tim Arnold, Lisa Balesano, Linnea Brandt, Jonah Choe, and Clare Crowell 
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{\it The very hot summer of 2012}
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Especially in the middle of the US, the summer of 2012 was one of the 
warmest on record.  Combined with a prolonged drought, the heat 
impacted agriculture and almost every other aspect of peoples' lives
for extended periods this year.  There have been hotter than usual summers
before, of course.  And some variation from year to year is 
entirely normal and expected.  So, just how unusual was the weather 
this summer?  And was this year an indication of 
a trend kicking in, or was it just a chance occurrence or
``blip'' in the record?  How can we tell?  

This is an area where mathematics very close to what we have been talking
about so far in our course can help to put things into perspective and perhaps shed
some light on the situation.  

The following web page has a number of ways to analyze just how 
unusual this hot summer was or not:
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\centerline{\tt www.climatecentral.org/news/2012-record-temperatures-which-states-led-the-nation-14951}
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{\it Assignment}
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Your group will be responsible for presenting both 
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\item{1)}  a summary of the arguments given at this page for saying that the 
weather this past summer was something really out of the ordinary and we should be 
concerned about it, and 
\item{2)}  a rebuttal of that position that would take the analysis
from the {\tt climatecentral.org} website as a starting point but say that 
the evidence there is not convincing enough to cause concern and/or this
is just a (perhaps extreme) instance of the possible variation in
summer weather in this country.  
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\noindent
Both sides can and should use the computer and projector in our classroom
to display the page above and any other information they would like
to bring in.  
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The natural way to do this will be to have three of you take each side 
and split up what you want to say in roughly equal sections so everyone 
presents part of the group's case.  If you want, 
I can assign who takes which side.  But you can also sort that out for 
yourselves if you have strong feelings one way or another and you want to 
present your own opinions.   If everyone finds themselves convinced that
this should be of concern, then the team doing the rebuttal will need to
think about how to make as convincing as possible a case for that position 
even though that is not what you think yourself.  Each side should plan to talk 
for about 12 - 15 minutes and we'll leave the rest of the for questions and
discussion with the rest of the class.  
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I would like to meet with each three-person team before class on 
Monday, October 1 to see where you are and see if you have any 
questions about how to make your case.  I'm free basically all 
morning on Thursday, September 27, and during office hours 10am to 12noon on
Friday, September 28 for those meetings.  I will not be in town over
the weekend of September 29 and 30, though, and I will not be 
able to respond to email until the evening of Sunday, September 30.  
Be sure you get started on this early and don't leave it all to the weekend!
\bye 

