Global Climate Change: Science and Society.

Catalog description

The changing climate will be the biggest, most complex, and most expensive problem that humans have ever had to face. There is no environment on the planet that is immune from the influences of the changing climate. This course will examine the interrelationships between the atmosphere, surficial geology, the ocean, biological systems, and how the energy received, shared, and moved between these systems can lead to global changes, and how these will effect humans from a broad array of socio-economic, geographic, and ethnic backgrounds. Topic covered include the Earth's energy budget, atmospheric-ocean coupling, the carbon cycle, how complex forcings and feedbacks can affect the climate system, climate change in deep time, and renewable energy technologies. Lecture, 3 hours; laboratory, 2 hours.