Climate change is a hotly debated issue, but what is the scientific basis behind it? What precisely do climate models predict and how trustworthy are they?
To answer such questions in a well-founded way, one needs a quantitative understanding of Earth’s climate system. The complex Earth system consists of many compartments, among which the atmosphere and the ocean have outstanding importance for the global climate. Another prerequisite for an understanding of climate change is knowledge about the climate of the past (paleoclimate). Ice, sediments, stalagmites, and groundwater are some important environmental archives, from which information about past climate variability can be gained.
Armed with such basic knowledge about the climate system and its dynamics, one can assess the current climate change and the projections for the future. Current measurements together with information from the ice archive show that the CO2-content of the atmosphere has continuously risen since the beginning of industrialization to levels far above those seen during the past 800’000 years. The consequences of such anthropogenic changes of the climate system can only be assessed using numerical models, which use the physical understanding of the various compartments discussed above.
This course in environmental physics and climate science will include the following topics:
System Earth and its compartments
Atmosphere and global energy balance
Climate archives and paleoclimate
Present climate change and climate prediction
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