Climate Change: A Deep Time Perspective

Since the industrial revolution, humans have emitted massive amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere at a rapid rate, causing increases in temperature, acid rain, ocean acidification, and desertification. However, the last 200 years are not the only period of drastic environmental change in Earth's history. In the 4.5 billion years since forming, Earth has experienced an atmosphere devoid of oxygen, been covered by glaciers, and hosted mass extinctions caused by both increases and decreases in temperature. This course aims to give students a deep-time perspective on Earth's climate, insights into the mechanisms controlling it, and the impacts of those changes. Students get hands-on experience examining and evaluating the supporting evidence during lab activities in addition to reading primary literature. We start by understanding Earth as a system, what the current state of that system is, controlling factors on climate, and how climate changes. The course then focuses on individual periods of dramatic climatic shifts including oxidation of the atmosphere (2.5 billion years ago), global glaciation (720-635 million years ago), sea level drop from global cooling (443 million years ago), massive volcanism (254 and 66 million years ago), asteroid impact (66 million years ago), and the impact of planetary cycles. Understanding the causes and consequences of past climatic events prepares students to better examine the current period of global climate changes and potential futures of Earth. Each class includes time for paper discussion, lectures on new material, and lab activities focused on evaluating evidence. For the final project, students select a policy or regulation that could mitigate the impacts of climate change. They research what the policy aims to address, how it would work, and its potential effectiveness before presenting on the last day of class. This course gives students a strong scientific background in data interpretation and evaluation as well as a deep understanding of Earth's climatic history and potential future.