Oceans and the Global Environment
HONORS 221A

Instructor: Peter Rhines, Oceanography/Atmospheric Sciences

The Earth environment is rapidly changing and the “end of Nature” has been announced. How much of this can we understand of this change from basic laws of physics? In this Discovery Seminar, students will be introduced to the environment from “below” through exploring the physics of oceans, and the connected biology of the oceans and land. The world’s oceans dominate the global storage of water, heat, and carbon, and its plants provide roughly one-half of the global production of oxygen. We will consider the way the circulating oceans and atmosphere interact to produce our changing climate. Beyond global warming lie many vital properties of our environment – drought, flooding, storminess – all of which are changing, and with them the habitability of major regions of Earth and the integrity of the global biosphere. In studying the natural environment, we will consider human impacts and environmental philosophy. Weekly lab afternoons will develop the science of the environment (illuminating the basic physics of light and energy to understanding the inner structure of hurricanes). The labs will make use of the facilities here on our campus and venture out on field studies in wetlands and ocean shore. Visit last year's course website at
This>www.ocean.washington.edu/courses/has221a-08

This course can be used toward completion of the Natural World (NW) requirement.

This class will be taught as an HONORS course. Registration is reserved for honors students until June 15, 2009. After June 15th, registration for remaining seats is open to all Early Fall Start students.

Meets: MTW 9:30-12:00; Lab Th 2:00-2:30 or 2:30-5:00
Location:

Registration is now closed