Climate Science

Climate Sciences concerns the study of the climate system of the earth with emphasis on the physical, dynamical, and chemical interactions of the atmosphere, ocean, land, ice, and the terrestrial and marine biospheres. The program encompasses changes on seasonal to inter annual time scales and those induced by human activities, as well as paleoclimatic changes on time scales from centuries to millions of years. Examples of current research activities include: interannual climate variability; physics and and dynamics of El Niño; studies of present and future changes in the chemical composition of the atmosphere in relation to global warming and ozone depletion; effects of cloud and cloud feedbacks in the climate system; paleoclimate reconstructions from ice cores, banded corals, tree-rings, and deep-sea sediment; the origin of ice ages; air-sea interactions; climate theor; terrestrial and mairine ecosystem response to global change.

Programs of study vary widely among the curricular programs, but generally first-year students are expected to enroll in core courses that cover physical, geological, chemical and biological oceanography and in other courses recommended by the student's faculty advisor. Then, by the end of the winter quarter of the first year, students will select a particular area of focus and choose a major professor. As students advance beyond the first year, they begin to function quite effectively as research assistants, high level technical personnel or, in some cases, as teaching assistants. Furthermore, during their third to fifth year they are working toward writing their dissertations. The interdisciplinary nature of research in marine and earth sciences is emphasized; students are encouraged to take courses in several programs and departments, and to select research problems of interdisciplinary character.

The emphasis of this curricular program is on education through interdisciplinary research. All students are responsible for material in the following "core" courses: SIO 210, 260, 217A, 217B, and 217C. Students are required to enroll and actively participate in at least two quarters of a seminar course. Students are required to specialize in a specific subdiscipline or track. Additional courses required for this track should be worked out soon after arrival of the student through consultation with his or her advisors. The following pre-approved tracks are offered at this time: (1) atmospheric dynamics and physics, (2) atmospheric chemistry, (3) paleoclimate studies.