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Academic Year 2004/2005

Earth's Changing Climate
E&ES 123 SP
Crosslistings:
E&ES 319

Is the earth warming? If we want to determine whether or not humans are influencing the climate of our planet, we need to know how much and how fast the earth's climate fluctuated before Homo sapiens walked on her surface. These are not easy questions to answer. The thermometers and rain guages lie buried in the rock and fossil record. To use them, we need to find them and interpret their information. In this class we will study the history of earth's climate, including the effects of variations in greenhouse gas concentrations, the locations of continents, the circulation patterns of oceans and atmosphere, and the productivity of earth's biota on land and in the sea. We will look at climate variations on several time scales. Over a billion years, there have been changes in the sun's solar energy, the composition of the atmosphere and life. During this time, earth's climate has varied from much hotter to much colder than today. Yet, the changes, when compared to our neighbors Venus and Mars, have been relatively small. Earth's climate has abeen stable. We will look at these past variations in earth's climate and try to understand the implications for possible future climate.

MAJOR READINGS

Selected readings from a variety of texts, articles, and web sites.

EXAMINATIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS

Students are expected to work on problem sets both in class and at home. Many of these will be computer (e.g. sim earth) web-based exercises. There will be a mid-term, a comprehensive final and a group project with written paper and oral presentation.

COURSE FORMAT: Lecture/Discussion

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Level: UGRD    Credit: 1    Gen Ed Area Dept: NSM E&ES    Grading Mode: Graded   

Prerequisites: NONE Links to Web Resources For This Course.

Last Updated on MAR-21-2005

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