Global Biogeochemical Cycles and Climate

Abstract

The human-induced emissions of carbon dioxide has led to atmospheric CO2 concentrations that Earth likely has no’t seen for the last 30 million years. This course aims to investigate and understand the impact of humans on Earth's biogeochemical cycles with a focus on the carbon cycle and its interaction with the physical climate system for the past, the present, and the future.

Objective

This course aims to investigate the nature of the interaction between the carbon cycles on land and in the ocean with climate and how this interaction has evolved over time and will change in the future. Students are expected to participate actively in the course, which includes the critical reading of the pertinent literature.

Content

Topics discussed include: The anthropogenic perturbation of the global carbon cycle and climate. Response of land and oceanic ecosystems to past and future global changes; Interactions between biogeochemical cycles on land and in the ocean; Biogeochemical processes controlling carbon dioxide and oxygen in the ocean and atmosphere on time-scales from a few years to a few hundred thousand years.

Resources