COURSE SUMMARY

As happened, since the early human history, the humanity has always been victim of the man-made disasters. The man has suffered the most of these disasters and he has caused the most them to happen. So this is man who invites odds and upsets to himself. The climatic disorders upsetting the environmental equilibrium prompt towards the same escapade of man. This is the fact that this course revolves around. A simple message; that human activities are largely responsible for most of the global warming and odd climate system is the crux of the course. It is widely and generally perceived that climate is weather and vice versa, though wrongly. To my understanding of this course, climate is what you expect and weather is what you get. Meaning thereby, climate is an estimation or prediction whereas weather is a fact and reality. Accuracy of estimation; is key to preparation for the reality that has to come ultimately. So the climate prediction becomes an important part of planning for the effects of future climate changes. This is the rationale on which the lessons and chapters of the course have been built upon. Study into interrelated climate and its changes is an important part of Environmental science. The science of environment being an interdisciplinary subject, integrates physical and biological knowledge for spotlighting the environment and encompass the understanding of climate and climate change. Its modern description as a diverse discipline of knowledge also includes study of climate effects, plans of its future changes in climate on a regional scale, methods of acquiring information of a climate model, principles of numerical global and regional climate model projections, probabilistic climate model projections, study of the impacts of climate change on human and natural systems such as health, agriculture, water resources etc. Now we take the contents of each lesson one by one. LESSON TOPIC :1 : Introduction

KEY CONCEPT: The introduction of the course1 neatly summarizes the relationship between the climate of a region and its weather.

IMPORTANT POINTS: This outlines a brief preface through some of the main issues in probabilistic climate forecasting and takes a look at the chain of models required to forecast the eventual impacts of changes in emissions of greenhouse gases. To make predictions about the climate on the support of numerical models, and how these vary hugely in complexity from the very simplest, back-of-the-envelope calculations to the three-dimensional global climate system models that require the worlds fastest supercomputers to run them. Using such a probabilistic climate forecasting technique, we can begin to understand which future climates are most likely, and what the climate most probably will not do. :2 : The climate system and its drivers

LESSON TOPIC

KEY CONCEPT: This unit aims to introduce many of the constituent parts of the climate system and indicate some of the many ways in which they interact.

IMPORTANT POINTS: The climate system is a highly complex interplay of physical, chemical and biological processes occurring among a very large number of different components. The main mechanisms that drive the climate and other things, the concept of energy balance in various regions of the climate system. The greenhouse effect in the Earths atmosphere and the physical principles involved in it. :3 : Climate variability

LESSON TOPIC

KEY CONCEPT: This unit corresponds at the various ways in which climate can fluctuate, strained by both anthropogenic activity and natural driving mechanisms.

IMPORTANT POINTS: Introduction to the concept of, radiative forcing as a simple measure of the probable climate impact of a given forcing mechanism. It briefly comes across the fundamental energy balances that conclude the state of the climate and then the various mechanisms that can force changes from that balanced state. The climatic variation can either be due to naturally driven activities (volcanic eruptions, changes in the energy received from the Sun, nonlinearity of atmospheric and oceanic processes) or anthropogenic activities (burning of fossil fuels to produce energy, has significantly increased the amounts of well-mixed greenhouse gases in the atmosphere) :4 : The climate up until present

LESSON TOPIC

KEY CONCEPT: The aim of this unit is to put the climate of the present day into context by examining a broad overview of past climates dating back over the past 400,000 years.

IMPORTANT POINTS: The conception of so-called proxy data palpable of instrumental measurements and temperature reconstructions indicates that the last century has probably been the warmest in at least the last 1,300 years. The scientific evidence leaves no doubt that the Earth is presently in one of the warmer stage of its history and that the temperature trend is one of warming. :5 : Climate models

LESSON TOPIC

KEY CONCEPT: This unit gives a look at the basics of how the climate is modeled numerically.

IMPORTANT POINTS: Focusing that why comprehensive numerical models of the climate are needed, before moving on to take an introductory look at how such models are formulated. Inclination, over the main features, of a typical global climate model and, how it is configured. The final section utilized climate model output to display that we can model the observed climate with a high degree of precision when both natural and anthropogenic forces are taken into account. :6 : Projections of future changes in climate

LESSON TOPIC

KEY CONCEPT: This unit gives a look at what some of the most state-of-the-art global climate models are presently signifying us about the projected climate changes by the end of this century.

IMPORTANT POINTS: The collective output of a large number of complex models present a picture of a considerably warmer world by 2100, with warming everywhere up to 8 C in the Arctic, and land predicted to be warmed more than the ocean. Likewise, the sea level is projected to rise by the order of 50 cm through the end of the century. The models, submits to the increased precipitation at low and high latitudes in winter and decreases in between. :7 : Regional climate modeling

LESSON TOPIC

KEY CONCEPT: The ultimate aim of the lesson is to introduce the concept of regional climate modeling, to provide some context so as to if it might be useful or even essential, to use the relative models

IMPORTANT POINTS: A regional climate model is a comprehensive physical model that includes at least the atmospheric and land surface components of the climate system and incorporates accounts of the important processes within the climate system such as clouds, radiation, rainfall, soil hydrology, etc. The various ways in which regional climate models have advantages over global models are outlined. The increased resolution of regional climate models enables them to simulate climate much more realistically than their global counterparts. It is the RCMs ability to resolve smaller-scale mountain and coastline features that leads to generally much more accurate representation of climate, accompanying the ability to represent smaller islands. :8 : Impacts of climate change

LESSON TOPIC

KEY CONCEPT: The unit presented a very brief overview of some of the main impacts that climate change is expected to have on human and natural systems.

IMPORTANT POINTS: Working Group II of the IPCC, focused on the impacts of climate change, noted in its 2007 report that; with high confidence that anthropogenic warming over the last three decades has had a discernible influence on many physical and biological systems. One of the most obvious impacts of climate change on human health is the increase in death and illness related to extremes of heat. In addition to heat, human health and life are also put at increased risk with an increase in floods, droughts, fires and storms, accompanied by the increased risk of infectious disease epidemics in warmer temperatures. Climate change is also expected to have an impact on many natural systems such as forests, coasts and ecosystems. However, it is also true in many cases that on balance the detrimental impacts of climate change are expected to outweigh the beneficial, and its impacts on agriculture and economy.