An Introduction to the Science of Climate Change

What is often meant by ‘climate change’, however, is the changes - and potential changes - in climate that are known to be induced by human activity (so-called ‘anthropogenic’ changes) which mean Climate changes induced by human activity such as the burning of fossil fuels leading to an increase in carbon dioxide emissions and this is the sense in which the phrase will be used in this course. Like natural climate change mechanisms, the mechanisms of anthropogenic change are also many and varied but chief among them is the increase of the gas carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere that arises when fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) are burnt.