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🌡️ How does climate change work?

Trace greenhouse physics, carbon sources, feedbacks, evidence, impacts, and the choices shaping future warming.

lessons

~30 min

to learn

🔬 Science

subject

Adults

level

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What you’ll learn

Planetary energy balanceFrame climate as energy in, energy out, storage, and redistribution.Sunlight absorbed must be balanced by infrared export. Imbalance stores heat, mostly in oceans.
Greenhouse physics without slogansExplain infrared-active gases, forcing, and why saturation slogans fail.Greenhouse gases alter radiative transfer. Forcing nudges the budget; aerosols and clouds add complexity.
Carbon cycle and human perturbationShow fast/slow carbon cycles and the industrial rise of CO₂ with sinks.Fossil carbon enters the fast cycle. Measurements document the rise; sinks absorb part of emissions.
Feedbacks that amplify or dampIdentify water vapor, ice-albedo, cloud, and carbon-cycle feedbacks.Feedbacks multiply forcing into larger responses. Clouds remain a leading uncertainty.
Observed fingerprints in the systemConnect multi-indicator observations to energy imbalance and greenhouse patterns.Warming, ocean heat, ice loss, and spectral fingerprints align with theory.
Extremes, oceans, and cascading mechanismsLink baselines, acidification, circulation, and compound hazards to physical drivers.Shifted means change extremes. Oceans warm and acidify; systems couple.
Timescales, commitment, and scientific confidenceTeach inertia, cumulative carbon logic, and tiered scientific confidence without policy persuasion.Long responders lock in change. Uncertainty is quantified; core mechanisms remain robust.

Questions this course answers

What does a persistent planetary energy imbalance (more energy in than out) imply?

Net energy input is stored as heat in the climate system, predominantly in oceans.

Match each term to its role

Albedo reflects, emission cools to space, transport redistributes heat.

How do greenhouse gases warm the surface climate in plain physical terms?

Infrared-active gases alter radiative transfer so the surface-troposphere system is warmer for a given solar input.

Why is “CO₂ bands are saturated, so more CO₂ does nothing” misleading?

Saturation slogans ignore vertical structure and spectral details that keep CO₂ effective as a forcing agent.

Order these carbon-story steps

Emissions raise atmospheric CO₂; sinks absorb part; the remainder forces climate.

About what was global mean atmospheric CO₂ near 1960 (teaching value from the Keeling record era)?

Early Keeling-era annual means were near the high 310s ppm; the record has risen substantially since.

Grounded in trusted sources

IPCC AR6 Working Group I Summary for Policymakers and chapter FAQs (energy budget, greenhouse effect, carbon cycle, feedbacks, observations)
NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory / Mauna Loa CO₂ records and educational explainers
NASA Earth Observatory and climate.nasa.gov mechanism explainers (energy balance, ocean heat, ice, sea level)
US National Academy of Sciences / Royal Society climate primers on radiative forcing and climate sensitivity
Peer-reviewed reviews on ocean acidification carbonate chemistry (public abstracts and agency explainers)

Every Wunder lesson is built from real, reputable sources — never invented.

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