Welcome to Week Three

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来自 American Museum of Natural History 的课程

地球的未来

244 个评分

American Museum of Natural History

地球的未来

244 个评分

Our Earth’s Future is about the science of climate change and how to talk about it. You will learn from scientists in the fields of climatology, oceanography, Earth science, and anthropology who study how climate change is affecting people, populations, and ways of life. Explore the multiple lines of evidence for the human-induced climate change that is happening today, and consider what that means for the future of our planet. At the end of this course you will be able to understand key scientific principles, identify and address misconceptions, and contribute confidently to conversations about climate change.

从本节课中

Climate Change is Happening: Model It

An important counterpart to observational evidence is computer modeling, an essential tool for investigating how the climate system works and how it will respond to continued greenhouse gas buildup in the atmosphere. How do we know that a model is accurate? One way is to consider a past event, enter the historic climate data, and see if the model successfully “hindcasts” the event in reasonable detail. Ever more detailed, today’s supercomputer models can even help identify the potential causes of climate events on a regional scale, as climatologist Dr. Michela Biasutti explains using her research on droughts in sub-Saharan Africa.

Welcome to Week Three2:03

Climate Change: Understanding the Forecast21:58

What are Feedback and Forcings?7:52

与讲师见面

Debra Tillinger, Ph.D.
Instructor

Now that you understand the observational evidence for climate change,

we're gonna look at the subject from a more mathematical viewpoint

using climate models.

The output from climate models is critical,

even to observational scientists like myself.

People often say, oh, it's just a model.

Well, yes, it's just a model.

All models are just models.

The question is what can we do with it?

How can we make it useful?

Climate models allow us to run experiments on the Earth.

It would be unethical and really,

really difficult to run an actual experiment on our actual Earth.

Once we can validate our models, once we can show that yeah,

they do a really good job of explaining what goes on and where.

We can run any experiment that you can imagine through a computer model,

then we can see in the real world, if the results are accurate.

>> We know that there's something else that will probably make the climate behave

in a way that is different from the past.

>> Our guest lecturer will be Dr.

Michaela Biasutti, a Research Scientist at Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory.

>> It's risky to base your projections on past data.

>> Her work uses model output to figure out how to actually make changes

in places like Africa that have been hard hit by climate change.

To better understand how climate models work,

I'll be talking with you about climate forcings and climate feedbacks.

That's what makes the climate system so dynamic.

We also have essays for you to read that will explain step by step,

how climate models are built and how they're used.

But rather than just have you listen to us talk about climate models,

I'm going to invite you to use some yourself.

We're first, gonna work with a simple dynamic model that will allow you to

understand how climate models and

just a few lines of code can really capture complex systems.

Then we'll look at model output,

real climate models that are being used by scientists today.

I think you'll learn a lot about how climate modeling works and

why it is so critical to the science.

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