Reading assignment #1
Topic: IPCC 4th assessment readings
One of the goals of the course AOSC401 is to understand how climate
changes due to anthropogenic influence. To this end the course
will require the reading of the Scientific Basis of the 4th assessment
Intergovernmental Panel Climate Change report. The learning
activity will constitute a class (student-professor-teaching assistant)
effort to conceptualize and discuss the latest findings and assessment
of current and projected climate change.
The means to achieve that learning goal will be through a series of
student presentations that summarize several chapters of the Scientific
Basis of the IPCC 4th Assessment. Although the responsibility of
presenting summaries of the specific chapters lies on specific
students, each student also has the responsibility of reading the
Technical Summary chapters before the presentation colloquium.
Students will be evaluated in two ways. One assessment will
evaluate the presentation based on the following criteria: discussion
of main findings, discussion of analyses, discussion of shortcomings
and use of illustrations (i.e., plots & diagrams).
Another assessment will be based on a quiz at the end of each
presentation. The goal of the quiz is to assess your
understanding of the topics discussed in each chapter summary.
The presentation will be about 30min, so please get in-depth as much as
you can.
The presenters and their respective chapter are listed in Table
1. The student is encouraged to consult before the presentation
with the professor or the teaching assistant about any need of
clarification on the reading assignment. However, if there is a
need of clarification, the student should contact the professor or
teaching assistant days in advance of the presentation as the professor
and teaching assistant will not be available for clarification 2 days
before the presentation.
Chapter #
Student
Chapter Title
1
Everybody
Historical Overview of Climate Change Science
2
Changes in Atmospheric Constituents and in Radiative Forcing
3
Dave
Observations: Surface and Atmospheric Climate Change
4
Laura
Observations: Changes in Snow, Ice and Frozen Ground
5
Juli
Observations: Oceanic Climate Change and Sea Level
6
Tricia
Paleoclimate
7
Graham
Couplings Between Changes in the Climate System and Biogeochemistry
8
Robby
Climate Models and their Evaluation
9
Understanding and Attributing Climate Change
10
Global Climate Projections
11
Regional Climate Projections