Climate Change

Full course description

Does it infuriate you when people consider the greenhouse effect to be a bad phenomenon? Do you know your ‘RCP2.6’ from your ‘RCP8.5’? How about the relative importance of carbon dioxide and methane in terms of radiative forcing? Or the difference between climate-friendly and climate resilient? No? Join the club. Very few people understand the nuts and blots of climate science. And that is a real shame, because climate change is considered to be the greatest environmental threat humanity has ever faced. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that the human influence on the climate system is clear. Continued emissions of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and changes in all components of the climate system. Limiting climate change will require substantial and sustained reductions of greenhouse gas emissions, while the need for adaptation to this new reality is increasingly being recognized. The course will provide students with a sound understanding of the key drivers and processes of climate change. We will discuss the state-of- the-art climate science, examine some key impacts of (future) climate change, and explore what can be done to address the problem.