The atmosphere is an incredibly complex part of the Earth. It protects our skins from the harmful radiation of the sun, and provides the planet with the vital components for life. However, right now the atmosphere faces some huge challenges. The Climate Crisis and air pollution affect every single person on the planet. But what causes them and how can we prevent harm from them?
In this seminar, we will review the fundamentals of these important topics. We will start by putting the subject of the atmosphere into a physical and mathematical basis and show (aided by some experiments) how fairly simple equations can be used to describe the complexity of the atmosphere. We will look back at the natural evolution of climate on our planet and discover how ice cores give us a unique glimpse into the past. We will then move on to review what the main causes of air pollution and the Climate Crisis are and how they are linked. We will look at observational data available through the internet to help raise understanding of how we can quite quickly write simple computer code (less than 10 lines!) to analyse complex datasets.
We will finish by thinking about what we can do, as individuals and societally, about these pressing issues and explore some of the potential solutions to repair our atmosphere.
Learning outcomes
- Identification and understanding of the key causes of air pollution and climate change;
- Develop a physical understanding of their interactions between trace gases in the atmosphere;
- Present techniques used by scientists to monitor the composition of the air around us.
