Climate change

Climate change is a key issue on today's social and political agenda. This free course explores the basic science that underpins climate change and global warming.

• Introduction
• Learning outcomes
• 1 Global climate and the greenhouse effect
• 1 Global climate and the greenhouse effect
• 1.1 Introduction
• 1.2 What determines the Earth's GMST?
• 1.2.1 Heating and cooling the Earth: the overall radiation balance
• 1.2.2 Bringing in the atmosphere: the natural greenhouse effect
• 1.3 Energy flows within the Earth-atmosphere system
• 1.3.1 The vertical 'structure' of the atmosphere
• 1.3.2 The fate of incoming solar radiation
• 1.3.3 The role of clouds
• 1.3.4 The role of convection in the atmosphere
• 1.4 An overview of the global energy budget
• 1.5 'Radiative forcing' as an agent of climate change
• 1.6 The human impact on the atmosphere: the coming of the industrial age
• 1.7 Summary
• 1.8 End of section questions
• 2 What do we know about recent climate change?
• 2 What do we know about recent climate change?
• 2.1 Preamble
• 2.2 Records of the Earth's temperature
• 2.2.1 Long-term rhythms in the climate
• 2.2.2 Temperature changes over the past millennium
• 2.3 Contested science: a case study
• 2.4 The meaning of 'consensus': peer review and the IPCC process
• 2.5 A 'collective picture of a warming world'
• 2.5.1 Physical and weather-related indicators
• 2.5.2 Environmental indicators
• 2.6 An evolving consensus on attribution
• 2.6.1 Weighing up the evidence: the full cast of suspects
• 2.6.2 The role of modelling studies
• 2.7 Summary
• 2.8 End of course question
• Conclusion
• References
• Acknowledgements