Climate Science

Climate Sciences concerns the study of Earth's climate system with emphasis on the physical, dynamical, and chemical interactions of the atmosphere, ocean, land, ice, and the terrestrial and marine biospheres. One of the central challenges is developing the ability to predict future climate changes, whether they are the consequences of human activities, or the result of natural climatic cycles. A related challenge is understanding how and why the climate of the earth has changed in the past.

To understand Earth's climate system requires understanding the mechanistic links between physical and chemical changes in the atmosphere (e.g. changes in winds, clouds, rainfall, sunlight, greenhouse gas abundances, or stratospheric ozone) and changes in the oceans (e.g. shifts in the current systems, temperature structure, or ocean biota), in the ice sheets (e.g. advances and retreats), and in land biota (e.g. changes in length of growing seasons or habitat range).

The climate system includes powerful feedback mechanisms. The amount of moisture in the atmosphere, for example, increases with global temperature, but the moisture also contributes to additional warming through the greenhouse effect. Scientists studying the climate system need experience in many disciplines including meteorology, oceanography, geography, ecology, geology, and paleontology.

Observing the climate system depends increasingly on new measurement technologies, such as satellite and in situ measurements of the atmosphere, oceans, and land surface. These developments are enabling Scripps scientists to develop a more precise and detailed understanding of various conditions that impact climate, such as winds, ocean currents, clouds, and amount of vegetation.

New technologies, including improved computer systems, are also leading the advances in the study of ancient climates. Scientists reconstruct past climates by analyzing proxy records contained in nature, such as in ice and sediment cores, corals, and tree rings. The capabilities offered by improving technology are vital to the development and testing of mathematical models for the climate system as a whole.

Programs of study vary widely among the curricular programs, but generally first-year students are expected to enroll in core courses that cover physical, geological, chemical and biological oceanography and in other courses recommended by the student's faculty advisor. Then, by the end of the first year, students usually select a particular area of focus and choose a major professor. As students advance beyond the first year, they begin to function quite effectively as research assistants, high level technical personnel or, in some cases, as teaching assistants. Furthermore, during their third to fifth year they are working toward writing their dissertations. The interdisciplinary nature of research in marine and earth sciences is emphasized; students are encouraged to take courses in several programs and departments, and to select research problems of interdisciplinary character.

The emphasis of this curricular program is on education through interdisciplinary research. All students are responsible for material in the following "core" courses: SIO 210, 260, 217A, 217B, and 217C. Students are required to enroll and actively participate in at least two quarters of a seminar course. Students are required to specialize in a specific subdiscipline or track. Additional courses required for this track should be worked out soon after arrival of the student through consultation with his or her advisors. The following pre-approved tracks are offered at this time: (1) atmospheric dynamics and physics, (2) atmospheric chemistry, (3) paleoclimate studies.