Climate Change: Natural and Otherwise

Jonathan Overpeck
WEDNESDAYS 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
October 19, 26, November 2, 9, 2011

Climate Change: Natural and Otherwise

Fall 2011
Sold Out
WEDNESDAYS
1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
October 19, 26, November 2, 9, 2011

Location: 

Main Campus

This course will give students an understanding of how the Earth’s climate changes naturally, as well as how humans are driving this change. We will explore what is likely to happen in the future, resulting both from natural change and change driven by the human-caused rise of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere and other influences. We’ll cover the physical climate system, how it interacts with water, landscapes and ecosystems, and what the options are for dealing with the change, both in terms of adaptation and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Although the course will steer clear of the politics of climate change, we will deal with scientific misconceptions and misunderstandings that commonly emerge in the public debate about climate change. Our geographic focus will be global, with a special emphasis on the US, and in particular, the Southwest.

Meet Your Professor

Professor; Co-Director, UA Institute of the Environment
Department of Geosciences, Department of Atmospheric Sciences

JONATHAN OVERPECK is a climate scientist and founding co-director of the University of Arizona’s Institute of the Environment, as well as Professor of Geosciences and Professor of Atmospheric Sciences. He has published over 140 papers in climate and the environmental sciences, and recently served as a Coordinating Lead Author for the Nobel Prize winning UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment (2007). Overpeck has also been awarded the US Department of Commerce Bronze and Gold Medals, as well as the Walter Orr Roberts award of the American Meteorological Society, for his interdisciplinary research. He has also been a Guggenheim Fellow, was the 2005 American Geophysical Union Bjerknes Lecturer, and shared the 2008 NOAA Oceanic and Atmospheric Research Outstanding Scientific Paper Award. Overpeck has active research programs on four continents, including Africa (West Africa), Asia (Tibet), South America (Peru and Ecuador) and North America (Arctic and Southwest). He is the principal investigator of the Climate Assessment for The Southwest (CLIMAS), one of several NOAA Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessment (RISA) programs, as well as the principal investigator of the recently announced US Department of Interior Southwest Climate Science Center. Overpeck has testified before Congress multiple times, and has served on many national and international science committees, including several of the US National Academy of Sciences. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), currently serves on the Board of Reviewing Editors for Science magazine, and is a founding co-editor of The Edge book series on Environmental Science, Law and Policy, a publication of the University of Arizona Press.

Location

Poetry Center
Dorothy Rubel Room
1508 E Helen
Tucson, AZ 85721
United States
Located on the SE corner of Helen Street and Vine Avenue, one block north of Speedway and three blocks west of Campbell Ave.

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