Earth's climate history

Climate change is in the news, discussed on the radio and in television programmes and is an important part of national and international government agendas. But what actually controls the climate we experience on the surface of the Earth, how has this changed over time and how can we investigate this in the past? We will look at the energy balance for planet Earth, how this affects our surface temperature and what forces this to change over time. We will look at important feedbacks within this system and how they serve to stabilise the planet over different timescales. And finally we will learn how to read the climate record in the past using chemical proxies and the geological record.