Global Change

Meteorology/Agronomy/Env. Science/Env. Studies 404


Fall 2014
Online Version

Instructor
William J. Gutowski, Jr.
3021 Agronomy
gutowski@iastate.edu

Teaching Assistant
Amanda Black
3014 Agronomy
asblack@iastate.edu

(Image courtesy of http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov)

Course Description

Current understanding of how climate evolves under natural and human influences. Global energy balance, structure and circulation of the atmosphere and oceans, role of land and snow/ice processes, climate variability, climate modeling, implications of climate change for natural and human systems, policy and ethical issues of climate change.

Course Objectives

To understand

Structure of Course

The class is an online course. Lectures will introduce topics for the majority of the semester. There will be a variety of other activities involving online discussion, computations, and quizzes.

This course is administered through Blackboard Learn. You will need to use it for all course ativities (lectures, discussion, computations, quizzes, etc.)

As an online couse, there are no formal office hours, but you are always welcome to contact the course TA, Amanda Black, or me, using the information above. The best way is via email. Please send email queries to both of us, and please start the "SUBJECT:" line with "Global Change:" so that we can identify your email amidst all the spam we receive.

Readings

  • Parts of chapters relating to each week's topic will be assigned from the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) and Fifth Assesment Report (AR5) from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. You can download relevant chapters from this link. Some chapters are rather long; the lectures will highlight the key points you need to learn. Most of the material is from the AR4, supplemented by material from the fairly recently released AR5. The AR5 in many respects represents a refinement of results reported in the AR4.
  • Journal articles to be discussed in class will be linked to the Blackboard Learn page in either the Media Library or the Current News links.
  • Readings from the book Climate Change: Picturing the Science by Schmidt and Wolfe will be assigned to provide additional understanding of the material. You should order this book from Amazon.com (Go to a direct link here) or other preferred book seller. (It's possible that the Memorial Union bookstore might have a few copies on hand.) I do provide scans of early readings in the course, since you most likely will not have the book already. They will appear in the Media Library.
  • Other relevant materials will be linked as appropriate.

    Quizzes

    Quizzes are administered through Blackboard Learn. Quizz previews are available for download ahead of time. Watch for notices from me.

    You may find it useful to look at the quiz preview first before attempting to take it online. The quiz preview includes all the questions in the actual quiz, plus additional questions.

    You may find it useful to look at the quiz first before attempting to take it online.

    Discussion Groups

    Online discussion and other exercises will use assigned discussion groups. You can download the discussion group list. I will notify you when it is available. Groups are designed to provide a mix of the backgrounds of students in the class, but also be small enough that everyone should feel they have opportunity to contribute.

    Online Dialogue

    The discussion will use Blackboard's tools to organize it. The online discussion focuses on a particular topics of interest in climate change. Further information on how to contribute to the dialogue and grading criteria appear here.

    Some of the online dialogue may require a written report in addition to participation in online discussion by break-out groups. I will let you know what to do if that occurs. The online discussion and other online activities contribute to your grade.

    Major, overriding concepts (not specific details) from each assigned seminar paper are fair game for exam questions.

    Some online dialogue will involve group exercises, with grading criteria for them given in the instructions.

    Group Exercises

    1. EPA CO2 emissions inventories (Discussion closes: TBA)

    2. Global Energy Balance: Background and tasks (to be assigned)

    Exams

    Exams will be administered to on campus (or nearby students) through the Iowa State's Engineering-LAS Online Testing Center. You should go to this link before your exams to find the locations and to review the General Instructions and the Rules. Note especially the strict rules of operation for the center, including the hours of access. Also, taking an exam early in an exam period is generally better than doing it later, as you may encounter delays from heavy usage of the Testing Center.

    If you are too far from campus to use the LAS Online Testing Center, you must make provisions to have a qualified proctor administer your exam! Please do this early in the semester to avoid problems with trying to rush approvals. You should read the information on Proctored Testing under all the categories on that page. There are strict requirements that the proctor and the site of the proctored exam must satisfy. Make sure that both you and the prospective proctor read these requirements first before filling out any application. Please be sure that you can satisfy these requirements early in the course. Note that the proctor must fill out an Off-Campus Proctor Application.

    Grading

    Quizzes 20 %
    Online Participation and Reports 20 %
    Mid-term Exam 25 %
    Final 35 %

    Email

    I communicate frequently with the class by email.

    The email address I have for all students is their @iastate.edu address. Students who prefer to use some other email address should follow these instructions to automatically forward your iastate.edu email to another system.

    IMPORTANT: When sending email to me, please start the "SUBJECT:" line with the words "Global Change". This will help us greatly in finding your emails to us.

    Pre-recorded Lectures

    I use pre-recorded lectures provided in Blackboard for the core of the course material. To view and listen to them, you simply need to click on the link for the lecture in Blackboard, so long as you have an appropriate browser with the Adobe Flash Player extension included. Typically, this extension is already in your browser, but if it is not, you will be asked if you want it downloaded and implemented on your machine. Basically, Windows and Macintosh OS X machines are ok. Linux machines should work (use Mozilla Firefox), but success is not guaranteed. Further details on compatibility appear at a web site on specific requirements and capabilities for Adobe Acrobat Connect, which is the software underlying these presentations.

    The Blackboard site gives two versions of the lectures:

  • A stanard version viewable on most browsers and some tablets
  • A "video" version needed for viewing on iPads. (The standard version will not display on iPads because of incompatabilities between the Flash extension and the iPad operating system.)

    For best visual clarity, you should make your browser window as large as possible. If you are listening to the lectures with others around you, out of courtesy, please use headphones. Also, sometimes the audio does not work the first time the lecture is invoked, but it does work if you close completely the lecture and click on the link again.

    I would like to know about whatever problems you encounter, so please send me an email on those, even if you fix the problem yourself.

    W. Gutowski's Away Schedule

    I will have to be out of town at times during the semester for various program and project meetings. In all cases, I should have access to email during at least part of the time I am away. Please keep in mind that I may not be in the same time zone, so replies may be slow. Since nearly all of the course is available and followed on line, through Blackboard and the class web page, I hope my travel will not be much of a disruption.

    My travel schedule:

    • 27-31 October: Climate Information Distillation Workshop (Santander, Spain)
    • 18 - 20 December: Fall AGU meeting (Sna Francisco, CA)
    Other dates are possible, though I am trying to avoid any. I will keep you posted.

    Course Schedule

     You should follow this schedule for lectures and reading assignments. The links under Topics provide PowerPoint files that correspond to the recorded lectures in Blackboad.

    Module

    Date

    Topic

    Source

    Other Materials

    1

    25 August 2014

    Introductions

  • Read and listen to material in Blackboard under the "Course Information" link (under links on the left side of the Blackboard page for this course).
  • Read the information above about this course on this web page and pages linked linked to it.

    • -

    		Assigned reading:Schmidt & Wolfe - Preface, p. xi-xii; Introduction, p. 1-3

    1

    27-29 August 2014

    Overview of Climate Change Science

  • Summary for Policy Makers - AR4 (ppt)
  • Summary of AR5 by T. Stocker (pdf)
  • Uncertainty Guidance - AR4 (ppt)
    Pre-recorded lecture: Summary for Policy Makers - AR4
    Pre-recorded lecture: Uncertainty Guidance - AR4

    • IPCC Working Group-I

  • Summary for Policy Makers - AR4
  • Summary for Policy Makers - AR5
  • Uncertainty Guidance - AR4
  • Uncertainty Guidance - AR5
    		• Background (from earlier GC courses)

  • Summary of AR5 by T. Stocker (pdf)
  • An alternate summary of the AR5 WG I report (pdf) - in haiku!

    Assigned reading: S&W - Introduction, p. 7-9

    •  

    1 September

    Labor Day

     

     

    1

    3 September 2014

    		 Historical Overview

    IPCC Reports AR4-WGI-Chapter 1

    		 Historical overview from the American Institute of Physics

    1

    5 September 2014

    Atmospheric Composition and Radiative Forcing

    IPCC Reports AR4-WGI-Chapter 2

    Assigned reading: S&W - Commonly Used Terms, p. 10-15

    Evolution of atmospheric carbon dioxide

    2

    8 - 12 September 2014

    Observed Climate: Surface & Atmosphere

    Animations in the lecture:

  • Surface air temperature annual cycle
  • Precipitation annual cycle

    • IPCC Reports AR4-WGI-Chapter 3

    		 Assigned reading: S&W - Chapter 1, up to section "Looking...", p. 19-27.

    2

    15 September 2014

    Observed Climate: Snow, ice, permafrost

    IPCC Reports AR4-WGI-Chapter 4

    		 Assigned reading: S&W - Section "Looking..." to end of Chapter 1, p.27-34

    Assigned reading: Box 4.1 in IPCC AR4 WG-I - Chapter 4 (page 367)

    2

    17 September 2014

    Observed Climate: Oceans & Sea Level

    IPCC Reports AR4-WGI-Chapter 5

    Assigned reading: Box 5.1 in IPCC AR4 WG-I - Chapter 5 (page 397)

    2

    19 September 2014

    Paleoclimate

    IPCC Reports AR4-WGI-Chapter 6

    Assigned reading: S&W - Chapter 6, up to start of "Aerosols", p.135-148

    Assigned reading: Box 6.3 in IPCC AR4 WG-I - Chapter 6 (page 461)

    Assigned reading: FAQ 5.1 in IPCC AR5-WGI-Chapter 5 (page 392)

    2

    19 September 2014

    Readings for online discussion:

  • Essay: Stewart Brand in Nature (2007)
  • News & Views: Philip W. Boyd in Nature Climate Change (2007)
  • The Laws of Global Warming: Carlson in Iowa Now (2012)
  • Geoengineering Patents: Cressey in Nature (2012)
  • Kolbert in the New Yorker (2009).[WARNING: Language in this article may be offensive to some. Please contact Prof. Gutowski if you have problems with language used.]

    •  

    Letter co-signed by W. Gutowski to governor, legislature & presidential candidates (November 2011):

  • Article about letter with link to letter.
  • A critical blog
  • A more humorous commentary

    • 3

    22-24 September 2014

    		 Biogeochemistry & Climate

    IPCC Reports AR4-WGI-Chapter 7

    Assigned reading: S&W - Section "Aerosols" to end of Chapter 6, p.148-155

    Assigned reading:Box 7.4 in IPCC AR4 WG-I - Chapter 7 (page 540)

    Assigned reading:FAQ 6.2 in IPCC AR5 WG-I - Chapter 6 (page 544)

    3

    26-29 September 2014

    Climate Models

    IPCC Reports AR4-WGI-Chapter 8

    Assigned reading: S&W - Chapter 3 up to "Ocean Biology", p.73-80

    Assigned reading:Box 8.1 in IPCC AR4 WG-I - Chapter 8 (page 632)

    Assigned reading:FAQ 9.1 in IPCC AR5 WG-I - Chapter 9 (page 824)

    3

    1 October 2014

    Climate Models (continued)

    IPCC Reports AR4-WGI-Chapter 8

    Assigned reading: S&W - Chapter 8 up to "How to...", p.195-199

    Assigned reading:Box 9.2 in IPCC AR5 WG-I - Chapter 9 (page 769)

     

    6-10 October 2014

    MID-TERM EXAM
    Administered at LAS Online Testing Center or via external proctor.
    If using external proctor, you need to have received approval by this time.

    IPCC Reports AR4-WGI-Chapter 1-8
    + AR5 equivalent

    		 Mid-term questions and answers available after the exam period.

    3

    3-10 October 2014

    Attribution of Changes

    IPCC Reports AR4-WGI-Chapter 9

    Assigned reading: FAQ 9.1 (page 696) and FAQ 9.2 (pages 703-703) in IPCC AR4 WG-I - Chapter 9 (page 632)

    Assigned reading: FAQ 10.1 (pages 894-895) and Box 10.1 (pages 875-876) in IPCC AR5 WG-I - Chapter 10 (page 632)

    4

    13 - 17 October 2014

    Projected Future Changes

    IPCC Reports AR4-WGI-Chapter 10

    Assigned reading: S&W - Section "How to ..." to end of Chapter 8, p.199-209

    Assigned reading: SRES Emissions Scenarios and FAQs 10.1 (page 783), 10.2 (page 818) and 10.3 (pages 824-825) in IPCC AR4 WG-I - Chapter 10

    Assigned reading: Box 11.1 (pages 959-961) and FAQ 11.1 (pages 964-965) in AR5-WGI-Chapter 11
    and
    FAQ 12.2 (pages 1084-1085) and FAQ 12.3 (pages 1106-1107) in IPCC AR5 WG-I - Chapter 12.

    4

    20-22 October 2014

    Regional Changes

    IPCC Reports AR4-WGI-Chapter 11

    Assigned reading: S&W - Chapter 4, p.95-111

    Assigned reading: FAQ 13.1 (pages 1148-1149) in AR5-WGI-Chapter 13
    and
    FAQ 14.1 (pages 1228-1229) and FAQ 14.2 (page 1256-1257) in IPCC AR5 WG-I - Chapter 14.

    4

    24 October 2014

    Regional Changes (cont'd.)

    IPCC Reports AR4-WGI-Chapter 11

    -

    5

    27 - 31 October 2014

    Impacts: Water Resources

    IPCC Reports AR4-WGII-Chapter 3

    Assigned reading: Box 3.1 (page 195) and Box 3.2 (page 197) in IPCC AR4 WG-II, Chapter 3

    5

    3-5 November 2014

    Impacts: Ecosystems

    IPCC Reports AR4-WGII-Chapter 4

    -

    5

    5 November 2014

    Readings for online discussion:

  • Hassol in EOS (2008)
  • Akasofu in EOS (2008)
  • Boykoff and Boykoff in Global Environmental Change (2004)

    •  

    		-

    5

    7 November 2014

    Impacts: Human Health

    IPCC Reports AR4-WGII-Chapter 8

    Assigned reading: Box 8.4 (page 403) and Box 8.5 (page 413) in IPCC AR4 WG-II, Chapter 8

    5

    10-12 November 2014

    		Impacts: Agriculture

     

    -

    5

    14 November 2014

    Impacts: Coastal Systems

    IPCC Reports AR4-WGII-Chapter 6

    -

    6

    14 November 2014

    Readings for online discussion:

  • Harte in Population and Environment (2007)
  • Potts in Population and Enviroment (2007)
  • Monbiot in The Global Warming Reader (2009)

    •  

    Kalnay slides on population issues.

    6

    17-21 November 2014

    Skeptics

     

    -

     

    24 - 28 November

    Thanksgiving Break

     

     

    7

    1 December 2014

    Development of a Climate Change Assessment: An Example - old version
    Development of a Climate Change Assessment: An Example - new version

    U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) Synthesis and Assessment Report 3-3

    Supplementary Documents NOAA news release and companion brochure

    7

    3 December 2014

    Future Directions

    -

    -

     

    5 - 12 December 2014

    Further discussions/exercises by students (TBA)

    		 

     

     

    15 - 19 December 2014

    Final Exam
    Administered at LAS Online Testing Center or via external proctor.
    If using external proctor, you need to have received approval by this time.

    		   

    Additional Sources of Information:

    Academic Dishonesty

    The class will follow Iowa State University’s policy on academic dishonesty. Anyone suspected of academic dishonesty will be reported to the Dean of Students Office. See Academic Misconduct page for further detail.

    Disability Accommodation

    Iowa State University complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act and Sect 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. If you have a disability and anticipate needing accommodations in this course, please contact (instructor name) to discuss this, ideally early in the semester or as soon as you become aware of your need. Before meeting with (instructor name), you will need to obtain a SAAR form with recommendations for accommodations from the Disability Resources Office, located in Room 1076 on the main floor of the Student Services Building. Their telephone number is 515-294-7220 or email disabilityresources@iastate.edu.

    Dead Week

    This class follows the Iowa State University Dead Week policy as noted in section 10.6.4 of the Faculty Handbook.

    Harassment and Discrimination

    Iowa State University strives to maintain our campus as a place of work and study for faculty, staff, and students that is free of all forms of prohibited discrimination and harassment based upon race, ethnicity, sex (including sexual assault), pregnancy, color, religion, national origin, physical or mental disability, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, or status as a U.S. veteran. Any student who has concerns about such behavior should contact his/her instructor, Student Assistance at 515-294-1020 or email dso-sas@iastate.edu, or the Office of Equal Opportunity and Compliance at 515-294-7612.

    Religious Accommodation

    If an academic or work requirement conflicts with your religious practices and/or observances, you may request reasonable accommodations. Your request must be in writing, and your instructor or supervisor will review the request. You or your instructor may also seek assistance from the Dean of Students Office or Office of Equal Opportunity and Compliance at 515-294-7612.

    Contact Information

    If you are experiencing, or have experienced, a problem with any of the above issues, email academicissues@iastate.edu.
    Acknowledgment

    This offering of Mteor/Agron/EnvSci/EnvSt 404 is a major revision of the version taught for several years by Prof. Gene Takle. Despite these changes, the overall goals and inspiration for the course stems from the earlier developments by Prof. Takle, whose efforts are much appreciated.

    (Images courtesy of USGS EROS Data Center: Himalayas, Deforestation in Bolivia, Namibian Desert)