Climate change is a key issue on today's social and political agenda. This free course explores the basic science that underpins climate change and global warming.
Overview
Syllabus
- Introduction
- Learning outcomes
- 1 Global climate and the greenhouse effect
- 1 Global climate and the greenhouse effect
- 1.1 Introduction
- 1.2 What determines the Earth's GMST?
- 1.2.1 Heating and cooling the Earth: the overall radiation balance
- 1.2.2 Bringing in the atmosphere: the natural greenhouse effect
- 1.3 Energy flows within the Earth-atmosphere system
- 1.3.1 The vertical 'structure' of the atmosphere
- 1.3.2 The fate of incoming solar radiation
- 1.3.3 The role of clouds
- 1.3.4 The role of convection in the atmosphere
- 1.4 An overview of the global energy budget
- 1.5 'Radiative forcing' as an agent of climate change
- 1.6 The human impact on the atmosphere: the coming of the industrial age
- 1.7 Summary
- 1.8 End of section questions
- 2 What do we know about recent climate change?
- 2 What do we know about recent climate change?
- 2.1 Preamble
- 2.2 Records of the Earth's temperature
- 2.2.1 Long-term rhythms in the climate
- 2.2.2 Temperature changes over the past millennium
- 2.3 Contested science: a case study
- 2.4 The meaning of 'consensus': peer review and the IPCC process
- 2.5 A 'collective picture of a warming world'
- 2.5.1 Physical and weather-related indicators
- 2.5.2 Environmental indicators
- 2.6 An evolving consensus on attribution
- 2.6.1 Weighing up the evidence: the full cast of suspects
- 2.6.2 The role of modelling studies
- 2.7 Summary
- 2.8 End of course question
- Conclusion
- References
- Acknowledgements
