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\subsection{Executive Summary}  \subsection{Introduction and Background}  Talk of climate change is everywhere, it's on the news, in the papers, and more researchers are always publishing new findings or backing up old ones. It used to commonly be called global warming, but now we know that the climate is doing more than just getting warmer. Common assertions Assertions  heard most commonly about climate change include sea level rise, warming oceans, glacial retreat, more extreme events, and rising carbon dioxide(CO2) levels. In this project we decided to focus on three aspects of climate change. A major cause, evidence of warming global temperatures, and a specific affect of the increasing temperatures. \par Carbon dioxide is the molecule that has the most effect on climate change  in our atmosphere. It is bigger than other atmospheric molecules and holds more energy. When heat radiates from the Earth's surface, most atmoshperic atmospheric  molecules are too small to interfere with the radiation, but CO2 absorbs the radiation and reflects it back towards the surface(1). This is essentially the greenhouse effect. Methane is another greenhouse gas, it has 20 times more warming potential than CO2(1). It is not considered as important in the overall debate because it is not produced on an enormous scale like CO2. In 2014 the US produced (ALLOT) tons of CO2, 70\% of which were from transportation and producing electricity. The most effective way to reduce CO2 emissions is to reduce fossel fossil  fuel consumption(1). \par The way we decided to observe the warming effect from carbon dioxide is to analyze the ocean temperatures. These temperatures are a good indicator of global average temperatures because the water has a high heat index and does not change without a lot of heat input(2). Rather than looking at records of the actual temperatures through time, we  looked at the temperature anomaly through time because these records are more reliable than actual temperature records. Temperature anomaly is the difference between the expected average temperature and the actual temperature. Rising ocean temperatures lead to higher sea levels and have a strong effect on the climate and envionment environment  of certain areas. Higher ocean temperatures lead to stonger stronger  ocean storms and can destabillize destabilize  marine habitats by aiding in the spread of invasive species and marine diseases(2). \par The specific affect effect  of increasing temperatures we researched was wildfires. It is not a direct cause and effect relationship, but there are many ways that the changing climate is affecting effecting  wildfires. Fire seasons are becoming longer, conditions are becoming drier making for more fuel for fires, and there is an increase in lightning which is a major cause of fires(3). Wild fires Wildfires  are a very important role in nature. They return neutrients nutrients  to the soil by burning dead or dying plants. Wildfires are troublesome, though, when they infringe on populated areas, they threaten the lives and property of the residents and firefighters. On avearage average  more than 100,000 wildfires burn 4 to 5 million acres of U.S. land every year. Recently that average has been up to 9 million acres(4). In addition, the overall area burned by fires per year in the United States is projected to double by late this century if the average summertime temperature increases by 2.9 degrees F(3). \subsection{Research Question}    \section{Design Phase}