A Bigger Picture: Global Scale Environmental Challenges
A series of lectures focusing on the environmental impact of people at planetary scale, and the role of human ingenuity in finding novel solutions.
Professor Carolyn Roberts is the first Frank Jackson Professor of the Environment at Gresham College. She is also a Senior Scientist at the UK Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN), which links business and universities in order to promote research and innovation in environmental technologies.
(from gresham.ac.uk)
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Scratching the Surface? Looking from Space at Human Impact on Earth
Recent developments in space technology have allowed us to view the Earth in new ways, and to identify our impact on land, atmosphere, oceans and freshwater in astonishing detail.
Hotting up: Meeting the Challenges of Climate Change in the 21st Century
Human-induced climate change has been identified by scientists and politicians as the greatest threat encountered by humanity.
Something in the Air: The Insidious Challenge of Air Pollution
Smoke from burning forests, and photochemical smog in Beijing and Delhi are visible from space, but most of the air pollution in cities such as London is invisible even at ground level.
Under the Sea: What's Happening in Our Oceans?
Oceans have been the least well-known major component of the Earth's environment. Whilst deep ocean exploration has enabled great advances in understanding the nature of sea floors, we are only recently starting to understand patterns of marine circulation and how these have changed over time.
The Environmental Challenges of Megacities
Faced with escalating population pressure and new construction technologies, western architects are designing cities in the skies, and under the sea.
All Must Have Prizes: Citizen Science and the Environment
Prior to the twentieth century, most environmental observations such as rainfall amounts and air temperatures were made by lay observers with interest and time on their hands.
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| Global Warming: What You Need to Know This is a two-hour documentary presented by Tom Brokaw, visiting global warming tipping points across the planet as experts examine the latest evidence about global warming. |
| Climate Change: The Evidence and Our Options Lonnie Thompson provides insight into the convincing evidence of climate change provided by glaciers and polar ice-caps, and the implications that inaction in the face of this rapid change will have on societies on a global scale. |
| Withstanding Climate Change: You can Change the World Dean Williams explores the evolution of climate models with from the mid 1970's to the present. Methods for testing climate models against a variety of benchmarks such as historical climate changes or seasonal changes are explained. |
| Air Pollution and Global Environments We will discuss sciences and societal consequences of air pollution problems such as 1) photochemical smog, 2) atmospheric particle pollution, 3) indoor pollution, 4) acid rain and 5) human triggered climate change. |
| Introduction to Earth System Science This course covers the origin and evolution of the Earth, its atmosphere, and oceans, from the perspective of biogeochemical cycles, energy use, and human impacts on the Earth system. |
| The Atmosphere, The Ocean, and Environmental Change This course explores the physical processes that control Earth's atmosphere, ocean, and climate. Quantitative methods for constructing mass and energy budgets. |