GEOG 5215 - Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation and Mitigation

Graduate students should enroll in GEOG 5215 and will be held to higher standards and/or more work. One of the most widely discussed issues today is the future change in the Earth's climate, with predicted increases in global temperature and resulting effects on climate regimes world-wide. These changes will impact both natural and human systems through sea level rise, the displacement of populations, health issues and changing availability of resources, and the economic and social costs of unmitigated climate change are expected impacts of these changes. With this knowledge, we will look at some of the methods that have been proposed to adapt to or mitigate these changes, including management and geoengineering of the Earth System. We will concentrate critically on the knowns of unknowns of future change and our ability to deal with it.