Climate Science, Risk and Solutions The MIT Climate Primer
[MUSIC PLAYING] LAUR HESSE FISHER: We know that you know that the Earth is warming, but you might have questions like, how did scientists figure out that this warming is happening and that it's caused by humans? How strong is the evidence, really? What risks can we expect? And what can we do about them? Climate science is not a new field. By the time of the American Civil War, scientists understood that the Earth is kept warm by a handful of gases that make up less than 1% of our atmosphere, but that these gases keep the sun's radiation from being immediately lost to outer space. And they understood that if humans were to change the amount of these gases in our atmosphere, our climate would be transformed. Today, these predictions are coming to life. And as global temperatures rise and extreme weather intensifies, you probably have more questions. The online primer Climate Science, Risk, & Solutions from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is our effort ...