Course Collection: Climate Change Science

This is a collection of recorded lectures and reference materials that provide an introduction to climate change science. The lectures are in different states of production, and updated occasionally.

These lectures are part of Climate / EAS 480 at the University of Michigan.  They have been used for several other courses.

Course Description

This course explores the intersections of the science of climate change with society: policy, business, economics, public health, energy, ecosystems, environmental engineering, information science, journalism, religion – whatever is important and of interest to the class. The climate science introduction relies on the philosophy of scientific reasoning; it is rigorous but not mathematical. The course introduces methodologies of complex, multi-disciplinary, and multi-jurisdictional problem solving.

The course varies from year to year based on what is happening with climate change in the news and student interests.

Learning Objectives

• Communication, collaboration and teamwork – the essential role of multi-lateral, iterative communication in problem solving
• Ethical intelligence – the role of cultural points of view and social justice in development of solution strategies
• Creativity and innovation – the capacity to synthesize knowledge to create solution strategies for complex problems
• Entrepreneurial mindset – understanding the workplace opportunities through real-world projects, and the essential need to develop innovative ways to integrate climate change into business, planning, and management

The focus is on the synthesis of information in the context of applying knowledge to problem solving.

Syllabus

The syllabus provides a detailed description to the course as taught at the University of Michigan. For 2022, the course will be remote.

Follow this link to the Syllabus.

Note: The lectures are visible at the link.  However, if you download them, they might be more reliable.

Lectures, Slides, and Supporting Resources

1. Introduction to Class
   1. Preface (8:00 Minute Lecture)
   2. Motivation (8:16 Minute Lecture, slides, pdf): This lecture is focused on three slides  on ocean heat content and surface temperature observations. It discusses heat accumulating in our  environment, the speed at which it is occurring, and the fact that it will continue for the coming decades. We will be living in a rapidly changing climate; we must learn to thrive in that climate.
      1. Rood: Pulling Back from the Climate Precipice
      2. Tipping Points:
         1. Nature Commentary: Climate tipping points — too risky to bet against (class link)
         2. Alan Miller Blog: Yet more science warning climate catastrophe looms
         3. McKay et al. Science (requires logon to UMich Library): Exceeding 1.5°C global warming could trigger multiple climate tipping points  (class link)
   3. Short History of Climate Change and Impacts (13:02 Minute Lecture, slides, pdf): This lecture refers to Spencer Weart’s history and describes the science-based approach to study the Earth’s climate. The general conclusions of our study of the Earth’s climate are stated.
      1. Spencer Weart: The Discovery of Global Warming
      2. Callendar: 1938 Discussion of Combustion and Global Warming
      3. Nice review of Callendar (1938) – Also, a very short history
      4. NYTimes: Eunice Foote, Overlooked No More
   4. Framing the Response to Climate Change (3:22 Minute Lecture, slides, pdf); The language of response: Mitigation, Adaptation, Climate Intervention (geo-engineering)
      1. Gibbons: Growth and Maturity of the Climate Adaptation Field (2020 lecture)
   5. Resources: Some Background Material from my Dynamics Class
      1. Basic Structure of Earth’s atmosphere (~ 16:00 minute lecture, slides, pdf)
         1. Description of Atmosphere: Figures, Units, and Constant (slides, pdf)
      2. Dynamics organizes the atmosphere ( ~ 16:30 minute lecture, slides, pdf)
   6. Takeaways Messages about Climate Change: If this is where you stop, these are worth knowing.
2. Systems and Balanced Systems
   1. Balanced Systems (19:40 Minute Segment, slides, pdf): This lecture introduces the concept of “systems” and thinking about systems of inter-related behavior. The Earth System is in balance, and with climate change we are breaking the balance that our civilizations and societies have evolved in.
      1. Open, Closed, and Isolated Systems:  The lecture, explicitly, includes a figure and definition of open, closed, and isolated systems. This is from an introduction to the conservation of mass in my Dynamics Class.  See section below on The Conservation Principle. (~ 3:00  minute  lecture,  slides,  pdf)
         1. Isolated system: no transfer of energy and mass across boundary
         2. Closed system: no transfer of mass, but there can be transfer of energy
         3. Open system: energy and mass can cross the boundary
   2. The Earth system (…, slides, pdf)
   3. Lynx and Hare: Dynamic Balance (…, slides, pdf)
3. Scientific Method and Practice
   1. Scientific Method As Use in Climate Science
      1. Scientific Method: Part 1 (20:50 Minute Lecture, slides, pdf)
      2. Scientific Method: Part 2 (13:47 Minute Lecture, slides, pdf)
      3. Computational Science (18:36 Minute Lecture, slides, pdf)
   2. Validation in Climate Science
      1. Rood, Validation of Climate Models (pdf): I recommend reading the first two sections of this paper for an introduction to the philosophy, challenges, and practice of evaluating climate models.
      2. Farber, Climate Models: A User’s Guide (pdf): This paper is by a lawyer and analyzes the practice of validating climate models and concludes they should have legal standing in U.S. courts.
   3. Peer review (coming)
4. The Conservation Principle (18.30 Minute Segment, slides, slide show, pdf): This is the most important science law to understand for climate change. The conservation of energy is from classical physics, and is introduced as a money counting problem.
   1. Conservation of thermodynamic energy: Introduction  ( ~ 5:30 minute lecture,  slides, pdf)  This is a brief scientific and mathematical introduction of the conservation of Thermodynamic energy.
5. Earth’s Energy Balance & Causes of Warming
   1. Introduction and Overview
   2. Earth’s Energy Balance: The Details (18:39 Minute Segment, slides, slide show, pdf): This lecture traces the Sun’s energy through the atmosphere and the Earth in detail. It demonstrates that the basic counting problem of our energy budget is quite simple. However, the Earth’s climate is a complex system; therefore, the actual accounting is difficult. Also, it points out that climate change is a relatively small change in the balance. Hence, it links the lectures on Systems and Balanced Systems
      1. Earth’s Energy Balance in One Slide (7:19 Minute Segment, slides, pdf): The short version of above.
      2. Why Isn’t the Earth Frozen in One Slide (4:07 Minute Segment, slides, slide show, pdf): Without greenhouse gases the Earth would be covered with ice.  Why didn’t this happen?
   3. What are the Causes of Climate Change (Forcing and Feedbacks) (19:15 Minute Segment, slides, pdf): This lecture, originally designed for a law class, focuses on human and non-human causes of climate change. It introduces feedbacks, and that the response of the Earth System to a little bit of warming is to warm more.
      1. Incoming Sunlight: This article from NOAA discusses variability of incoming sunlight, including during the Milankovitch cycles.
   4. Greenhouse Gases (23:32 Minute Lecture,  slides, pdf)
      1. Greenhouse  Gases  and  Global  Warming  Potential(See IPCC Reports  for more complete lists)
         1. EPA: Greenhouse gases
         2. Methane UK: A discussion of methane science and policy
         3. EPA: Global Warming Potential (Potency
         4. Wikipedia: Greenhouse Gases
         5. Wikipedia: Global Warming Potential (Potency)
         6. Lawrence Berkeley Lab 2016 Report
      2. Water
         1. USGS: The Water Cycle for Adults and Advanced Students
         2. Global Warming Potential of Water Vapor
   5. Intervention / Geoengineering (recording coming, slides, pdf)
      1. Science Magazine News: Geoengineers inch closer to Sun-dimming balloon test
6. Carbon Dioxide Balance
   1. How Carbon Dioxide is Changing (18:38 Minute Lecture, slides, pdf) This live capture lecture and questions introduce the “Keeling Curve” of carbon dioxide at Mauna Loa and then looks at a breakdown of what has been causing the increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
      1. NOAA: Global Monitoring Laboratory Carbon Cycle Greenhouse Gases (Data Source)
      2. NOAA: Global Monitoring Laboratory 800,000 Year Animation
         1. Three-minute story of 800,000 years of carbon dioxide
         2. Carbon Dioxide Highest in Last 800,000 Years
      3. Data Grabber
      4. Perspective: Encounters with the Keeling Curve
   2. Carbon Cycle: Using the Conservation Equation for Carbon Dioxide (slides, pdf)
      1. Solomon: Irreversible Climate Change
      2. Inman (2008): Carbon is Forever This 2008 news article in Nature discusses  how long the carbon dioxide we release stays active in changing the heat balance of the planet. It is worth doing research how this analysis stands the test of time.
      3. Pierrehumbert @ RealClimate: Losing Time, Not Buying Time This 2010 analysis challenges the concept that we can really buy time by managing warming in the near term. What do you think?
   3. Intervention / Geoengineering (recording coming, slides, pdf)
7. Aerosols
   1. Introduction to Aerosols (26:10 Minute Lecture, slides, pdf)
      1. In the lecture “Introduction to Aerosols” aerosol clouds interactions are introduced.
         Comparison of clean and polluted clouds is used. The introduction does not span all of the important variability in the problem; it is broad brush, at best.  Of particular note, the importance of the size and composition of aerosols is not discussed.  These first two links provide more discussion of the complexity of aerosol-cloud interactions.  The links below introduce the subject more completely at different levels of complexity. Also, see the links in the section on Feedbacks that Boost or Damp Warming.
         More on this lecture
         1. DOE/PNNL: Tiny particle have outsize impact on storm clouds,precipitation
         2. MIT NEWS Office: Aerosols from pollution, desert storms, and forest fires may intensify thunderstorms
   2. Resources: Introductions to Aerosols and News Articles
      1. Nature Knowledge: Aerosols and their Relation to Global Climate and Climate Sensitivity
      2. NASA
         1. What are aerosols and why are they important?
         2. Aerosols: Tiny Particles, Big Impact
      3. Wikipedia: Aerosols
      4. Mother Jones: Soot on Greenland’s Ice
8. Feedbacks that Boost or Damp Warming
   1. Introduction: Feedbacks that Boost or Damp Warming (29:06 Minute Lecture, slides, pdf): This is a more detailed discussion of feedbacks. That is, how does the Earth System respond to a little warming. (see class section on Earth’s Energy Balance & Causes of Warming)
      1. Soden and Held: Classic Paper on Climate Feedbacks
      2. Lindzen et al: Iris Effect
      3. World Wildlife Federation: Arctic Feedbacks (Good Introduction)
      4. Roe and Baker: Climate Sensitivity and Positive Feedbacks
   2. Resources: Cloud Feedbacks
      1. Inside Climate News: Seeing Clouds Clearly: Are They Cooling Us Down or Heating Us Up? (Interview with Andrew Gettelman)
      2. Wikipedia: Cloud Feedback
      3. Zelinka: Causes of Higher Climate Sensitivity in CMIP6 Models
9. Changes to the Energy Balance: Warming
   1. Changes in Radiative Forcing (IPCC Bar Chart) (20:33 Minute Lecture, slides, pdf)
      1. RealClimate: The Evolution of Radiative Forcing Bar-charts
   2. How Temperature is Changing and Predicted to Change (12:22 Minute Lecture, slides, pdf) This live capture lecture examines both temperature observations and projections of temperature change. The idea of “fingerprinting” to attribute temperature changes to greenhouse gases is introduced.
   3. Resources: Climate Sensitivity: How much warming occurs with a doubling of carbon dioxide
      1. Dessler: Is climate sensitivity less than 2 degrees? This is a good introduction, with the equation and some analysis,
      2. Climate 101: Rahmsdorf and Mann: What is climate sensitivity?
      3. Carbon Brief: Explainer: How scientists estimate climate sensitivity
         1. Just the short video
      4. Wikipedia: Climate Sensitivity
10. Past climate
    1. Ice Age Cycles (19:32 Minute Lecture, slides, pdf)
    2. The Last Thousand Years (11:48 Minute Lecture, slides, pdf)
       1. Miller et al: Abrupt onset of Little Ice Age triggered by volcanism and sustained by sea-ice/ocean feedbacks
       2. Osborn & Briffa: Spatial of 20th Century Warmth
       3. Nature News: Palaeoclimate puzzle explained by seasonal variation (Was it really warmer 6000 years ago than today?)
    3. Resources: Sources of past climate data and information (Paleoclimate)
       1. National Centers for Environmental Information: Paleoclimatology Data
          1. Ice Core Portal
       2. Koshland Science Museum
          1. NOAA: Carbon Dioxide for the Last 800,000 Years
          2. NASA: Why Is Current Warming Different from the Past
       3. Petit: 420,000 Years of Vostok Ice Core Data
       4. Bereiter: Revision of the EPICA Dome C CO2 record from 800 to 600 kyr before present: Very interesting discussion of data and data quality for the oldest part of the record.
       5. Incoming Sunlight: This article from NOAA discusses variability of incoming sunlight, including during the Milankovitch cycles.
11. Astronomy, geography, and rotation
12. Observing Earth’s Climate
    1. Observing Strategy, Proxies, Early Thermometers (18:12 Minute Lecture, slides, slide show, pdf)
    2. Resources: Some sources of climate observations:  There are many sites that provide access to climate data. The ones here are home to foundational data and services.
       1. Temperature Updates: A collection of websites that provide the temperature updates that you see on the news.  Also,  links  to  references  on  data  quality.
          1. National Centers for Environmental Information: State of the Climate
          2. NASA: GISS Surface Temperature Analysis: Global Maps
          3. Copernicus Climate Service provides authoritative information about the past, present and future climate, as well as tools to enable climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies by policy makers and businesses.
             1. Monthly climate updates
       2. Levitus Ocean Heat Content
       3. National Snow and Ice Data Center
13. Uncertainty
    1. Introduction to Uncertainty in the Scientific Investigation of Earth’s Climate (Rood Lectures): This series of lectures introduces uncertainty, in general, and the most common classification of uncertainty as model uncertainty, scenario uncertainty, and internal variability. The representation of these uncertainties, as well as observational uncertainty is discussed using IPCC surface temperature figures.
14. Natural climate variability
    1. Volcanoes
       1. USGS: Volcanoes and Climate Change
       2. NASA: Volcanoes and Climate Change
    2. Internal Variability / Dynamic variability ( 36:00 Minute Lecture, slides, pdf)
       1. Paul, Ulrich, UC Davis: Climate Oscillations (lecture)
       2. El Niño / La Niña / ENSO
          1. El Nino – What is it? (YouTube, Met Office)
          2. El Nino – La Nina (YouTube – Keith Meldahl) This is a good explainer of the dynamics.
          3. Climate.gov: Current Status and Explainers
          4. NOAA/PMEL: El Niño Theme Page
          5. NOAA/CPC: El Niño
          6. IRI: ENSO Resources
          7. Australia BOM: Excellent presentation of current El Niño / La Niña conditions
       3. Arctic Oscillation / North Atlantic Oscillation / Annular Mode
          1. Lamont Doherty: North Atlantic Oscillation
          2. NOAA/CPC: Arctic Oscillation
          3. Colorado State: Annular Modes
       4. Pacific Decadal Oscillation
          1. CICOES/JISAO: Pacific Decadal Oscillation
          2. Met Office: What is the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (Video)
          3. Mantua: Pacific Decadal Oscillation Review Paper
    3. Internal variability and Surface Temperature Observations (24:47 Minute Lecture, slides, pdf)
    4. Abrupt climate change ( …, slides, pdf)
       1. How do ocean currents work?  (YouTube, Jennifer Verduin)
       2. How does the Gulf Stream work? (YouTube, Kurzgesagt)
       3. Lamont-Doherty: Abrupt Climate Change (Younger Dryas)
       4. National Academy (2013): Abrupt Climate Change: Anticipating Surprises
       5. National Academy (2002): Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises
15. Arctic
16. Antarctica
17. Earth system redux
18. Coherent and convergent evidence of climate change
    1. Consequences of Warming: Physical Climate: (22:00 Minute Lecture, slides, pdf)
       1. Washington Post interactive beyond 2 degrees
       2. Emergence of complex societies after sea level stabilized
       3. Ice sheet melting in line with worse case scenarios
       4. The Ring People: Shell islands off South Carolina Coast, built by indigenous Americans, washing away as sea level rises.
19. Models
    1. Climate Model Construction (18:30 Minute Lecture, slides, pdf)
       1. Rood’s Simple Model Introduction (Topical Collection)
       2. Rood: U.S. Climate and Weather Modeling Policy and Practice
       3. Dave Bice at Penn State: Introduction to modeling using the STELLA modeling software
20. Attribution

A Collection of Educational Sites

• https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/outreach/lesson_plans/
• NWS: JetStream – An Online School for Weather
  • NWS: Cloud Introduction