ATMO521

041144

The class is aimed primarily at upper level undergraduate and graduate students in all areas of the Earth sciences, including Atmospheric Sciences, Hydrology sciences, Geosciences, Geography, Planetary sciences, and environmental sciences. This is a synthesis course to introduce the earth as a system: atmosphere, oceans, land, cryosphere, and solid earth, and to inculcate deeper scientific understanding of the components of the Earth system, their interactions, and the consequences of changes in the Earth system for life. These interactions occur on a continuum of temporal and spatial scales ranging from short-term weather to long-term climate and motions of the solid Earth, and from local and regional to global. We know that climate has natural variability and has changed dramatically in the past. Recent studies of climate change have generated large controversy about the possibility of human induced climate change. Are we entering a period of global warming? What drives the long-term evolution of climate? How does the current climate system work? Can we predict how it will change in the future? The central underlying theme of the class will be the relative roles of the atmosphere, ocean, land surface, and cryosphere in driving climate variability at different time and space scales. This class will provide a solid understanding for the individual components of climate, and the physical processes taking place in and among these components.

GRD - Regular Grades A, B, C, D, E

Graduate

GIDP - GC (Global Change)

017636

PHYS 142, PHYS 143, and MATH 223.

ATMO421