Lecture 19 Past (&Future) climates

Lisa Tauxe

Climate - what is it.

climate is the "average" of weather. it may be rainy today, but the climate of San Diego is sunny.

How do we read past climates

How do we get the data

Why does climate change?

Past Climates - the study of paleoclimatology

Future Climate

we don't know for sure what the climate will be, but we DO know that by burning fossil fuels, we are signifantly changing the chemistry of the atmosphere by adding large amounts of
carbon dioxide.

Carbon dioxide is a green house gas and could lead to a warmer climate in the future, with the attendant melting of the ice caps (resulting in flooding), warming of the equatorial ocean (resulting in more severe hurricanes), changes in precipitation (could be too wet or too dry), etc.

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Lisa Tauxe