Climate Change

Licensing Information

This text was adapted by #OpenCourseWare under an Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Chapter 1: Weather

  • Weather and Climate
  • The Climate System
  • Processes

Chapter 2: Observations

  • Atmosphere
  • Cryosphere
  • Ocean
  • Biosphere and Carbon Cycle

Chapter 3: Paleoclimate

  • Methods
  • The Last Two Millennia
  • The Holocene
  • The Ice Ages

Chapter 4: Theory

  • Electromagnetic Radiation
  • The Greenhouse Effect
  • Earth’s Energy Budget
  • Radiative Forcings, Feedback Processes, and Climate Sensitivity

Chapter 5: Carbon

  • The Natural Carbon Cycle
  • Anthropogenic Carbon
  • Carbonate Chemistry and Ocean Acidification

Chapter 6: Processes

  • Atmospheric Circulation
  • The Hydrologic Cycle
  • Ocean Circulation

Chapter 7: Models

  • Construction
  • Evaluation
  • Applications

Chapter 8: Impacts

  • Projections
  • Ecosystems
  • Long-Term Changes
  • Regional Changes
  • Extremes
  • Impacts on Humans

Chapter 9: Economics

  • Economics and the climate change challenge:  Understanding incentives and policies

Chapter 10: Ethics

  • Do We Have a Moral Responsibility to Stop Global Temperature Rise?

Chapter 11: Solutions

  • Technology
  • Politics
  • Personal Actions
  • Adaptation