Week 8

1. What are the most important themes you have learned? Anthropocene is the epoch when humans have changed earth's geology.
2. What aspect(s) did you find difficult? Understanding what exacerbates urban heat islands. I thought building height, drainage, light-colored paved areas, and air conditioning. But, maybe light-colored paved areas reflect heat?
3. What did you find most interesting? And why? The Anthropocene because it's simply staggering that humans are the only species that could create its own geological epoch.
4. Was there something that you learned that prompted you to do your own research? I looked into the snowball earth a bit more.
5. Are there any web sites or other online resource that you found particularly useful in furthering your knowledge and understanding? The IPCC website, NASA, and EPA were all useful.

Week 7

1. What are the most important themes you have learned this week? Energy efficiency in buildings can have  a big impact on carbon emissions. NIMBY people are motivated by place attachment and procedural justice. 
2. What aspect of this week did you find difficult? Fairly easy to understand.
3. What did you find most interesting? And why? NIMBYism motivations. At least there could be solutions if looked at in a positive way instead of pejoratively.
4. Was there something that you learned this week that prompted you to do your own research?
5. Are there any web sites or other online resource that you found particularly useful in furthering your knowledge and understanding? NYT and ThinkProgress on the NIMBY issue.

Week 6

1. What are the most important themes you have learned this week? Food security, food waste, population growth,
2. What aspect of this week did you find difficult?
3. What did you find most interesting? And why? Food waste is so large that it could make a big impact on food that would need to be  produced, if addressed. 
4. Was there something that you learned this week that prompted you to do your own research? After hearing that so much food was wasted (I had heard it before but was hazy on the numbers) I researched food waste at a couple of sites and used that in my comments. 
5. Are there any web sites or other online resource that you found particularly useful in furthering your knowledge and understanding?Mainly, the Global Food Security website and blog. 

Week 5

1. What are the most important themes you have learned this week?  Acidification can affect ocean marine systems that will can an impact on humans. The Antarctic ice sheets are buttressed and these may be weakening. However, melting there isn't necessarily due to AGW it may be because of changes in wind patterns, for example, or El Non/La Nina.
2. What aspect of this week did you find difficult? The mechanism for the melting of Antarctic ice sheets.
3. What did you find most interesting? And why? The Antarctic ice sheet issue, because I was a little less clear on that before this week, whereas I was a little better informed on acidification.
4. Was there something that you learned this week that prompted you to do your own research? Marine species extinction prompted me to look at earlier mass extinction.
5. Are there any web sites or other online resource that you found particularly useful in furthering your knowledge and understanding? The Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change by White, Alley et al which is online. 

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Week 4

1. What are the most important themes you have learned this week? Modeling accuracy. CDR v. CCS.
2. What aspect of this week did you find difficult? Remembering the difference between CDR and CCS.
3. What did you find most interesting? And why? IPCC climate modeling has been accurate within ranges.
4. Was there something that you learned this week that prompted you to do your own research? I researched the IPCC models and their accuracy.
5. Are there any web sites or other online resource that you found particularly useful in furthering your knowledge and understanding? SkS.

Week 3

What are the most important themes you have learned this week? This would include the fact that climate change is impacting weather although it's difficult to say exactly which weather events are a result of global warming. We do know there's a trend though in extreme weather events, even though that was unclear in the course video.

What aspect of this week did you find difficult? Trying to figure out which part of the world had warmed the most from 1980-2004.

What did you find most interesting? And why? The emissions graph. Even though I already and a pretty good idea of which of the major countries emitted the most and least.

Was there something that you learned this week that prompted you to do your own research? Looking more into the impact of climate change on Washington,DC.

Are there any web sites or other online resource that you found particularly useful in furthering your knowledge and understanding? Some on lie articles about heat waves and SLR impacts.

Antarctica

Sea ice increased in Antarctica in Sep 2012:

Scientists largely attribute the increase in Antarctic sea ice extent to stronger circumpolar winds, which blow the sea ice outward, increasing extent.

NSIDC scientist Ted Scambos said, "Antarctica's changes—in winter, in the sea ice—are due more to wind than to warmth, because the warming does not take much of the sea ice area above the freezing point during winter. Instead, the winds that blow around the continent, the "westerlies," have gotten stronger in response to a stubbornly cold continent, and the warming ocean and land to the north."http://nsidc.org/news/press/20121002_MinimumPR.html

week 2 review

Ice core samples
Snowball earth
Pliocene temperatures and aspects of the climate system then. CO2 levels similar to ours. Rapid rate we're emitting CO2.
Tree rings.

1. What are the most important themes you have learned this week?
2. What aspect of this week did you find difficult? Snowball earth. Also illuminating though in learning about feedbacks.
3. What did you find most interesting? And why? Ice core samples. To think we can go back 800,000 years to look at earth's climate then is mind-boggling.
4. Was there something that you learned this week that prompted you to do your own research? On the Pliocene epoch.
5. Are there any web sites or other online resource that you found particularly useful in furthering your knowledge and understanding? The Keeling Curve; NASA.

Ice core samples

Like marine sediment cores, ice cores can tell scientists a lot as they examine the layers of snow from which the ice cores are taken. Ice core samples can be taken to determine how much carbon dioxide was in the earth's atmosphere at various times in earth's history. In the Antarctica, scientists have been able to measure back as far as 750,000 years. Gases like CO2 and methane are trapped in bubbles in the ice. One of the limitations of this method is that it can only tell us what the atmosphere was like where the ice is. It can hint at global conditions from that information. Mountain glaciers in Peru, Tanzania and other countries have been examined as well.

week 1 review

1. What are the key scientific principles that explain climate change including the greenhouse (blanket) effect? Radiaiton from the sun passes through the atmosphere, is absorbed by the earth and radiates back as infrared heat. GHG's such as CO2 absorb that heat and radiate some of it back, heating the earth's surface.
2. What are the key feedback mechanisms that help to explain why our climate is able to “self-regulate”? Ice/albedo, radiative, and water vapor.
3. How can our climate be conceptualised as a system containing a series of components that interact with one another? The hydrological cycle is part of our climate, where the oceans and atmosphere interact with each other.

Also consider:

1. What are the most important themes you have learned this week? Feedback effects happen between various components of the earth system.
2. What aspect of this week did you find difficult? It was all well explained.
3. What did you find most interesting? And why? The ice albedo effect and other feedbacks, especially water vapor. It helped me conceptualize the interrelatedness of the various factors.
4. Was there something that you learned this week that prompted you to do your own research? At this point I haven't, yet.
5. Are there any web sites or other online resource that you found particularly useful in furthering your knowledge and understanding? The NASA GISS website and NOAA websites.