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所在平台: Coursera |
课程主页: https://www.coursera.org/learn/earth-climate-change
课程评论：没有评论
课程名称：我们地球的未来 课程概述：本课程将深入探讨气候变化的科学及如何有效交流这一主题。学员将从气候学、海洋学、地球科学和人类学等领域的科学家那里学习，了解气候变化对人类、人口与生活方式的影响。课程将探讨人类引发的气候变化的多重证据，并思考这对地球未来的意义。完成课程后，学员将能够理解关键的科学原则，识别并纠正误解，自信地参与关于气候变化的对话。 课程大纲： 1. 气候变化正在发生：观察证据 - 课程将提出“科学是什么？”和“气候是什么？”两个问题，帮助学员理解科学的基本原理及气候系统的基本动态。学习如何利用冰芯研究气候变化的证据，并理解这些证据对于预测未来的重要性。 2. 一切归结于海洋 - 本单元将探讨海洋在地球气候系统中的重要角色，包括其巨大的热量储存和交换能力。重点讨论格林兰和南极冰盖融化的影响，以及这一过程可能导致的未来海平面上升。 3. 气候变化正在发生：模型研究 - 学员将学习计算机建模作为气候系统研究的重要工具。通过回顾历史气候数据，学员将了解如何判断气候模型的准确性，并且介绍了超级计算机模型在区域尺度上识别气候事件潜在原因的能力。 4. 与气候变化共存 - 本单元关注气候变化的当前后果，尤其是在不同地区人们面临的挑战。例如，在海平面上升威胁下，太平洋岛屿的社区如何团结应对，此外，食物不安全问题对未来人类的威胁。 5. 减缓、适应还是承受？ - 本单元探讨未来的走向与人类的行动密切相关。学员将分析温室气体排放的不确定性及其对气候事件的影响，并讨论如何提高应对自然现象的韧性，包括通过洪水和飓风（如桑迪飓风）的案例学习。 通过本课程的学习，学员将全面了解气候变化的科学基础及其对人类生活各方面的深远影响。
Name:Climate Change Is Happening: See It
Description:Human-induced climate change is happening. But in order to explore the evidence for this claim, we must first ask two questions: “What is science?” and “What is climate?” Once we understand how science is done and the basic dynamics of the climate system, we’ll focus on how scientists study ice cores, and see how evidence of climate change in the past is fundamental to understanding what lies ahead.
Name:It All Comes Down to the Ocean
Description:Both the ocean’s sheer size – it covers seventy percent of our planet’s surface – and the properties of water make the ocean a major player in Earth’s climate system. An enormous reservoir of heat, the ocean is an important mechanism of heat storage and exchange with the atmosphere, which has important implications for climate change. We’ll focus on one of the consequences of warming: melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. How might this melting lead to future sea level rise? Scientists are studying geological records of past warming, and associated sea level rise, to see what the future may bring.
Name:Climate Change is Happening: Model It
Description:An important counterpart to observational evidence is computer modeling, an essential tool for investigating how the climate system works and how it will respond to continued greenhouse gas buildup in the atmosphere. How do we know that a model is accurate? One way is to consider a past event, enter the historic climate data, and see if the model successfully “hindcasts” the event in reasonable detail. Ever more detailed, today’s supercomputer models can even help identify the potential causes of climate events on a regional scale, as climatologist Dr. Michela Biasutti explains using her research on droughts in sub-Saharan Africa.
Name:Living with Climate Change
Description:Climate change is often framed as a future phenomenon, but it’s clear that people are already experiencing the consequences. What are the effects? It depends to some extent on where, and how, you live. For example, in the Pacific Islands, where sea level rise is threatening entire ways of life, communities have come together to prepare. What happens when there’s no place to go? Coastal communities aren’t the only ones at risk; food insecurity may one day threaten us all. And of course, humans are not the only species affected, and some will be at even greater risk in the future.
Name:Mitigate, Adapt, or Suffer?
Description:What happens next? We don’t know, but the answer depends far less on scientific data than on human action—or inaction. The major uncertainty is the future rate of greenhouse gas emissions, which is impossible to predict because it depends on socioeconomic, technological, and political developments. Furthermore, the risks posed by different kinds of natural phenomena vary widely, and similar events can have very different consequences depending on where and even when they occur. How will the effects be distributed, and how resilient are we? Hurricane Sandy provided lessons about our willingness to accept and plan for a future where severe climate events happen more frequently.
Our Earth’s Future is about the science of climate change and how to talk about it. You will learn from scientists in the fields of climatology, oceanography, Earth science, and anthropology who study how climate change is affecting people, populations, and ways of life. Explore the multiple lines of evidence for the human-induced climate change that is happening today, and consider what that means for the future of our planet. At the end of this course you will be able to understand key scientific principles, identify and address misconceptions, and contribute confidently to conversations about climate change.
