Commack Student, Teacher Duo Publish Climate Change Research Paper

A Commack High School student and his teacher teamed up to write a research paper exposing a disturbing trend of climate change.

Senior Hugh Han and science research teacher Richard Kurtz coauthored the research paper, which compared primary temperature and precipitation data from almost 200 years ago against present day data, and found that the average annual temperature in metropolitan (downstate) New York has risen significantly over this time.

The pair’s research paper was submitted to the "Journal of Emerging Investigators," and is published on its website. The paper is titled "An Investigative Analysis of Climate Change Using Historical and Modern Weather Data." 

In their research, the pair compared meteorological differences between the 1800s and 2000s using recorded historical and modern weather data from four different time periods, each separated by approximately 60 years.

Results showed that annual mean temperatures have increased at higher rates in more recent years and that the number of extreme days each year, defined as the days with temperatures greater than or equal to 90ºF or temperatures less than or equal to 10ºF increased over time. The data confirmed that both the daily minimum temperatures and daily maximum temperatures in almost every month have increased over time. They also found that annual mean temperatures have not only increased, but are rising at a drastically increased rate than they have in the past.

"The rate at which the climate is currently changing is a threat to the environment and the dangers of global warming concern scientists, policy makers, and the general public throughout the world," Han and Kurtz stated.