Feedback Loops in the Climate System

Lab Brief #12

🎯 Your mission

Set it up. Test it. Be amazed.

⚡ The twist

The slowest changes are the biggest ones.

What you'll learn

Melting ice exposes dark ocean, which absorbs more sunlight and melts more ice — a positive feedback that amplifies the original change. Negative feedbacks damp change instead. Which loops dominate is what makes climate prediction hard.

Key words

positive feedback
A loop in which a change causes more of the same change.
albedo
How much sunlight a surface reflects; ice is high, open ocean low.

Make a hypothesis first

Predict: which will erode faster?

Say your guess out loud — then find out if you were right.

Get ready

🧰 What you need

two trays
white and black paper
water
thermometers
lamp
stopwatch

Get ready

⚠️ Safety first

The lamp gets hot — keep it clear of the trays and unplug it before moving it.
Keep water well away from the lamp's cable and any socket.

Step 1 of 4 · Read

Think about what you just learned: say what "positive feedback" and "albedo" mean in your own words before you start.

Step 2 of 4 · Do

Measure the temperature rise under a lamp of a white tray and a black tray of water over ten minutes. Use the difference to explain the ice-albedo feedback quantitatively.

Step 3 of 4 · Observe

Record what actually happened, including anything that did not match what you expected.

Step 4 of 4 · Record

Write a conclusion that answers the question this lesson opened with, and state your uncertainty.

Question 1 of 2

Melting sea ice speeds further melting because open ocean has:

How sure are you?😐 maybe

Question 2 of 2

A positive feedback loop:

How sure are you?😐 maybe

Mind = blown

🪨 Every grain of sand on every beach used to be a mountain.

Nice work!

You got 0 of 2 right.

Next: Mitigation Versus Adaptation All lessons

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✨ More to explore

🌍 Where you see this in real life: This is shaping the ground you walk on, slowly, every single day.

🏆 Stretch challenge (try it this week): Find a rock outside and try to guess how old it is.

👨‍👩‍👧 For the dinner table: “What's the slowest change you can think of?”

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Feedback Loops in the Climate System

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