Module Catalogue 2025/26

Pre Requisite Comment

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Co Requisite Comment

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Aims

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has projected a future, warmer climate, which has the potential to affect everybody on Earth. From extreme weather events, rising sea level, glacier ice loss, land degradation to migrating ecosystems, the impact of climate change on our socio-economic wellbeing will be profound. Still, the most dangerous aspect of our changing climate is the uncertainty in the exact nature and rate of projected climate change. We know from the recent instrumental record, climate has the ability to have a large impact on humans, but records of past climate rarely extend beyond the last 150 years. The problem with this is these records are too short to critically examine the full range of climate behaviour and variability. As a result, there is great uncertainty in how future climate may respond in a warming world.

Using the past to understand modern climate and to predict how we can expect it to change in coming years, has been key to showing us how Earth's climate system can shift dramatically between different climate states. Understanding the drivers and mechanisms of these switches in climate state over different timescales is critical to anticipating potential human-driven climate change.

The aim of this module is to introduce students to Earth’s extraordinarily broad range of climate variability, and to provide them with an understanding of the mechanisms of climate change. In addition, the module also discusses how we can assess modern climate change and reconstruct past climate using a range of tools and how these can be used to understand climate change and climate sensitivity.

Outline Of Syllabus

The module will be centred around a variety of themes:

1. Modern and future climate change - debunking climate myths.
2. How can we use past climate to predict the future?
3. Ice sheets and sea level rise. Why what happens at the poles, doesn't stay at the poles.
4. Extreme events and tipping points in the climate system.
5. People and climate. How have past climate changes impacted human evolution and civilisation?

Within these themes we will explore the variety of approaches we can take to assess climate change by looking at the tools to generate the data, sensitivities of the results and the similarities and differences in these data across the globe.

Intended Knowledge Outcomes

At the end of the module students will be able to:

1.       Explain climate change mechanisms and their variability at different temporal and spatial time scales.
2.       Be able to critically assess records of past and future climate change.
3. Understand the sensitivity of climate data and models.

By the end of the module, students should be able to evaluate the implications of past climate change for understanding our climate trajectory by synthesising multiple records and models of climate change, integrating this with outputs from IPCC assessment reports.

Intended Skill Outcomes

At the end of the module students will be able to:

1.       Handle complex concepts and theories.
2.       Demonstrate an understanding of uncertainty in scientific investigation.
3.       Synthesis and presentation of competing arguments and to make informed judgements.

Oral and written communication of scientific results.

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

Lectures, workshops and inquiry-based learning will complement each other in providing both a theoretical background and practical training in the analysis of climate data, as well as providing breadth of subject area. Lectures are planned to deliver the background to past and future climate concepts, with dedicated technique lectures reinforcing the concepts of a climate “toolbox” i.e. how we use climate data and their limitations, and the inquiry-based learning provides opportunities to handle real climate data and to interrogate it.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

The essay will test theoretical knowledge of the subject and breadth of understanding of palaeoclimate data. The poster presentation will test practical skills and ability to analyse, interpret and report palaeoclimate data.

General Notes

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