SUSTAINABILITY 3: CLIMATE CHANGE

The course is included in the Minor program ‘Sustainability’ of the International College.
Module aims:
To provide an overview of global climate change, a key issue in science today; the causes (forcing) of climate change; the natural response times of the many components of Earth’s climate system; the major implications global climate change has for natural and social systems.
To introduce students from diverse background knowledge and skills to active research questions and areas of scientific controversy on these key topics.

Having successfully completed this module the students will be able to:
- Understand the role of climate change in affecting past, present and future variability in environmental conditions;
- Understand the nature of long-term change in the climate system and the ways this can be inferred;
- Understand how physical and human processes interact to affect the state of the climate system;
- Be aware of the impacts of climate change on human and natural systems and how they can be assessed;
- Be familiar with current research areas and specific examples in the topics covered;
- Be informed and competent in discussions about future climate change and natural climate variability and be critical in examining different explanations of climate change;
- Give a concise presentation on a complex subject.

Basic scientific knowledge

The module consists of seven main strands:
PART I: Primer on the Earth’s climate system: this section covers the nature and basic physics of global climate and climate change
PART II: Climate Archives: The Climate Record of the Distant Past
PART III: Natural climate drivers (i.e. forcings) and the origin of pre-industrial climate: An overview of what controls climate over various timescales
PART IV: Climate response in the geological past: A look at climate variability over Earth history (how we reconstruct what happened, and why?)
PART V: Anthropogenic forcing: human influence on the climate system
PART VI: Climate response in the ‘modern’ world (since 1850)
PART VII: Mitigation strategies and adaptation pathways

1. Earth’s climate: past and future
by William Ruddiman
Macmillan Leaning, 3rd Edition, 2014

2. The climate crisis: An Introductory guide to Climate Change
by David Archer and Stefan Rahmstorf
Cambridge University Press, 2010

3. IPCC, 2014: Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Core Writing Team, R.K. Pachauri and L.A. Meyer (eds.)]. IPCC, Geneva, Switzerland, 151 pp.
https://archive.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/syr/

Mid-term assessment (20 %): the students will need to write a report on a Science review paper and answer some questions, which will require the integration of information from all parts of the course.
Presentation (80 %): The student will put together a 20-minute presentation at seminar style gatherings on the theme ‘Climate response in the ‘modern’ world (since 1850)’.

Formal Lectures (x30).
Each year a small number of lectures are typically delivered by external guest lectures, who are leading experts in their field.

written and oral

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Climate change and energy" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development