APS313   Global Change   (10 credits)

Description

This course will provide a framework for understanding the causes of climatic changes and the nature and scale of evolution, adaptation and ecological responses of plants to these changes. The course will describe the nature of controls of past, present and future climatic change. This provides a framework for understanding the types and scale of evolution, adaptation and ecological responses of plants to changes in climate and atmospheric CO2. The course will address land plant evolution over the last 400million years; responses to geological extinction events and global to local space scales of plat responses to past, present and likely future carbon dioxide concentrations and climate. The view of the Earth System is introduced, with examples of feedbacks between climate, the cryosphere, the oceans and the terrestrial biosphere.

Reading List