ENV 705a/EVST 394 () / 2024-2025

Global Climate Change: Simple, Serious, and Solvable

Credits: 3 Fall 2024: M,W, 1:00-2:15, TBA

People are currently mining millions of years’ worth of stored photosynthetic carbon from the solid Earth and transferring it to the atmosphere where it is profoundly changing the chemistry, physics, and biology of the atmosphere, land, and oceans. Exchanges with the oceans and land surface have been modified substantially, so that currently only about half of anthropogenic emissions remain in the atmosphere. These “carbon sinks” are poorly understood, contributing a great deal of uncertainty to future climate. We consider biogeochemical and transport processes in land ecosystems, the oceans, and atmosphere as well as anthropogenic emissions. We conclude with a study of changes in carbon cycling in the past and future, including predictions by coupled Earth System Models.