Environmental Systems: Climate Change

The climate system is a complex machine for moving energy around the planet that depends on myriad interactions between air, water, ice, rocks, and life on various time and space scales—and it affects nearly every aspect of the environment we live in. Throughout Earths 4.5 billion year history, climate has experienced periods both warmer and colder than today, as evidenced by records of environmental change preserved in natural archives. Today, human activity is the largest driver of change in the global climate system. This course provides an introduction to how Earth's climate works, the history of past climate changes, current trends and projected future conditions—all focused on parsing out what is well known to what is deeply uncertain. We will close with a brief survey of the political, economic, and sociological dimensions of climate change to understand how the science fits into a larger framework.

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