HUMANS & THE CARBON CYCLE

Prerequisites: One semester of college-level calculus, college-level chemistry. College-level physics or geoscience. Or instructor’s permission. The accelerating climate change of the current day is driven by humanity’s modifications to the global carbon cycle. This course introduces the basic science of the global carbon cycle, focusing on large-scale processes occurring on annual to centennial timescales. Students will leave this course with an understanding of the degree to which the global carbon cycle is understood and quantified and the key uncertainties that are the focus of current research. We will build an understanding of the potential pathways and the significant challenges to limiting global warming to 2oC as intended by the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. 

The course will begin with a brief review of climate science basics and the role of CO2 in climate and climate change (weeks 1-2). Next, the fundamental processes of the ocean and the terrestrial biosphere carbon sinks will be covered (weeks 3-7). In weeks 8-10, our focus will be the drivers of current and future anthropogenic carbon emissions. In weeks 11-12, we will consider the potential for engineered sinks to contribute to global budgets. In weeks 13-14, students will present their final projects, and we will review the course content in the context of the December release of the current year’s Global Carbon Budget.