This course focuses on the science behind our understanding of how our planet's climate has changed over time, in particular from 100 million years ago to the present. The most significant processes, astronomical, geological, oceanographic, and atmospheric, are examined with an emphasis on the broad scales of time and space over which they operate, and drive climatic change. Proxy data records are defined in the context of how they record climatic data, and how we "read" them to learn the climatic history they store. Finally, the course brings us into the historical age, where data stores on climate change are the most diverse, but shortest in duration. The ultimate goal is for students to understand how we know what we know about Earth's past climatic changes, so that we can formulate informed strategies moving forward to mitigate our own species' impact on global climate.

This course focuses on the science behind our understanding of how our planet's climate has changed over time, in particular from 100 million years ago to the present. The most significant processes, astronomical, geological, oceanographic, and atmospheric, are examined with an emphasis on the broad scales of time and space over which they operate, and drive climatic change. Proxy data records are defined in the context of how they record climatic data, and how we "read" them to learn the climatic history they store. Finally, the course brings us into the historical age, where data stores on climate change are the most diverse, but shortest in duration. The ultimate goal is for students to understand how we know what we know about Earth's past climatic changes, so that we can formulate informed strategies moving forward to mitigate our own species' impact on global climate.