Dave Green Lecture Course 

Dave Green has asked me to mention the following Lecture Course which sounds rather interesting.

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CLIMATE CHANGE THROUGH GEOLOGICAL TIME

This is a 10 week course, starting on Monday 25^th April and finishing on July 11^th (no meeting on 23rd or 30th May, but we will meet on the Bank holidays 3rd May). We are meeting in a new venue – the Beacon Hotel at the end of the road in Haresfield village, where there should be plenty of parking in the car park, or along the road. For those who are coming from some distance, the easiest approach is from Junction 12 on the M5, from where you should take the B4008 towards Stonehouse, turning first left after 200metres, then right at the next T junction, over the railway, and right into the village as the road turns sharply left. Each session will start at 7.30 and will last 2 hours, including a coffee break.

Course Outline:

1. Introduction: an overview of the subject of palaeoclimatology and its development. A summary of the development of Earth’s climate and its operation.

2. The tools of palaeoclimatology – how can we deduce past climates millions of years in the past? Week 1: Physical evidence preserved in rocks – Marine and Terrestrial fossils and lithologies.

3. The tools of palaeoclimatology 

Week 2 – Proxies – stable geochemical isotopes of Oxygen, Carbon, Strontium and Nitrogen. Climate modelling.

4. Pre Cambrian Climates 1 – the early atmosphere of Earth.

5. Pre Cambrian Climates 2 – Snowball Earth – the glaciations of the early and late Proterozoic.

6. The Lower Palaeozoic Greenhouse climate.

7. The Upper Palaeozoic Icehouse climate.

8. The Mesozoic to Early Cainozoic Greenhouse Climate.

9. The Late Cainozoic to Quaternary Icehouse climate.

10. The Anthropocene and future climate.

Useful Reading:  those with a * are in the linked Dropbox folder below and can be downloaded

“Earth’s Climate Evolution”* by Colin Summerhayes (2015, updated as “Palaeoclimatology” in 2020), explains the subject by charting its development , mainly through the later years of the 20^th century and into the 21^st .

“Paleoclimates”* by Thomas Cronin (2009) is a standard, well laid out and written textbook on the subject.

“A Brief History of the Earth’s Climate – Everyone’s Guide to the Science of Climate Change”*

Zalasiewicz J.,Williams M. – “The Goldilocks Planet:  The 4 Billion Year Story of Earth's Climate” *

(Frontiers in Earth Sciences) Gilles Ramstein et al- “Paleoclimatology”* (2021) the most up-to-date text

Ruddiman, William F – “Earth's climate_ past and future”* (2014)

C R Scotese et al (2021) “Phanerozoic paleotemperatures The earth’s changing climate during the last 540Ma”* An up-to-date summary of climate change in a review article.

Lawrence A. Frakes, et al – “Climate modes of the Phanerozoic_ the history of the earth's climate over the past 600 million years”* (1992)

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/1fn5wa0s70n9e98d35717/h?dl=0&rlkey=o8f4jic5f0kkxqmpzgyos7lvd

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