Prerequisites: PHYS 002C or PHYS 02HC or PHYS 040C or PHYS 040HC ; or consent of instructor
Description: Explores global climate change in historic and geologic time scales. Topics include ocean-atmosphere feedbacks, El Niño, Pacific decadal oscillation, anthropogenic CO2, volcanism, cosmic rays, polar ozone depletion, global climate modeling, stable isotopes, “ice house” Pleistocene climates, “greenhouse” climates of the Mesozoic and Tertiary, plate tectonics, and the “snowball” Earth.