Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast

开始时间: 04/22/2022 持续时间: 8 weeks

所在平台: CourseraArchive

课程类别: 物理与地球科学

大学或机构: The University of Chicago(芝加哥大学)

课程主页: https://www.coursera.org/course/globalwarming

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课程详情

What causes global warming? What is the role of human behavior in climate change?

This class describes the science of global warming and the forecast for humans’ impact on Earth's climate. It brings together insights and perspectives from physics, chemistry, biology, earth and atmospheric sciences, and even some economics. The simple mathematics underlying these differing approaches is the only background one needs. It is an accessible, multidisciplinary tour of climate science for a general audience.

The first unit explores the basic principles for understanding Earth's climate.  The class begins with the nature of heat and light, then builds the very simplest conceptual—and algebraic—model for the climate of a planet, including the greenhouse effect. Over the next weeks, we introduce complexities of the real world to this model: how greenhouse gases are selective about what light they absorb, how the temperature structure and windiness of the atmosphere sets the stage for the greenhouse effect, and how feedbacks amplify it.

The second unit describes the carbon cycle of the Earth, how it stabilizes Earth's climate on some time scales but destabilizes it on others. Fossil fuel carbon is part of the cycle, and it is in this context that we discuss the impact of fossil fuel energy on the Earth's carbon cycle.  

The last unit of the class is about the human impact on Earth's climate: why we believe it's changing, why we believe we’re changing it, the impacts that could have, and the options we have to mitigate the situation.

课程大纲

Unit 1: What is the Greenhouse Effect? (weeks 1–4)
Heat and Light / Our First Climate Model / Greenhouse Gases / The Atmosphere / Weather and Climate / Feedbacks

Unit 2: Fossil Fuels and the Carbon Cycle (weeks 5–6)
The Carbon Cycle / Fossil Fuels and Energy / The Perturbed Carbon Cycle

Unit 3: The Forecast (weeks 7–8)
The Smoking Gun / Paleoclimate / Impacts / Mitigation

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课程简介

This class is an introduction to the science of global warming for students without a science background. Students will examine the evidence surrounding climate change from a variety of perspectives and approaches, and, in the process, gain a multidisciplinary understanding of the scientific process.

课程标签

芝加哥大学

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