PREREQUISITES:
- AOSC 200- Weather and Climate
- or
- AOSC 400- Physical Meteorology of the Atmosphere
- or permission of instructor
DESCRIPTION:
Welcome to AOSC 401! In this course, we will cover a broad introduction to climate variability,
climate change, and Earth system science. Climate variability is recurring variations in global
atmospheric and oceanic circulations; an example of climate variability is the El Niño pattern.
Climate change, in the context of this course, is the changes and impacts due to human-caused
emissions of greenhouse gases. Earth system science is an interdisciplinary perspective that
includes the atmosphere, ocean, land, and cryosphere (ice), and their interactions. This course
will cover several different topics, including the Earth’s energy budget, the causes of climate
change, the carbon cycle, climate sensitivity, global climate models, and the attribution of
climate change impacts. We will also discuss the fundamentals of climate science
communication and applied climate prediction, and we will include time for the study of
additional related topics of interest to be selected by the class. This course will provide students
with an awareness of the breadth of topics included in atmospheric and oceanic science and help
to develop powerful communication skills.