Climate Science for Everyone

Overview

Class Central Tips

Climate change impacts everyone — from record-breaking heat waves, to physical and mental health impacts, to food shortages. Understanding the science behind climate change provides you with the foundational knowledge necessary for taking action in your community and enhancing your career. No matter your age, job, goals, or interests, this course will enable you to meaningfully engage with one of the defining challenges facing humanity today. What is the evidence for climate change? What key concepts describe the physical science of climate change? And are there ways to predict how the climate could change in the future? This short course provides everyone an entry-level overview of climate change science, with no science background needed! By the end of the course, you should be able to explain the causes of climate change and its impacts. Along the way, you’ll be given opportunities to consider how to apply this knowledge in your own life or career. Learning about climate science is the first step in your journey to becoming a more engaged global citizen as you help determine our planet’s future.

Syllabus

Evidence of a Warming Planet

Welcome to Climate Science for Everyone! We’ll begin this week by introducing the course and explaining why understanding climate change science is important to you. Then, we’ll quickly discuss a short history of climate change science. Finally, you will learn about the increase in global average surface temperature since the pre-industrial era in the context of international agreements to limit warming. This will provide foundational knowledge for the rest of the course material.

The Climate System

This week, you will learn about the energy balance of the earth system and how the increase in global average temperature since the pre-industrial era can be explained in terms of changes in this energy balance.

Drivers of Climate Change: Carbon Dioxide, Methane, and Aerosols

This week, you will learn about how human activities have changed the atmospheric concentrations of the two main greenhouse gasses, carbon dioxide and methane. We will also touch on how the atmospheric concentration of anthropogenic sulfate aerosols, which have offset some of the warming from greenhouse gasses, is changing because of pollution control measures.

Future Climate Change Scenarios

This week, you will learn how global average surface temperature will evolve over the course of this century under various greenhouse gas emission scenarios. Additionally, we will give you a chance to reflect on what you’ve learned in the course and how you can take action to help with climate change both personally and professionally.