GEOG 119
Global Climatology and Climate Change
Description: Lecture, three hours. Requisite: course 1. Survey of Earth's climate system and factors that cause globe's climate to change. Study of most important properties of climate, and how they vary and connect geographically and over time. Explanation of physical laws governing climate variations and interconnections to build basic-level understanding of natural climate phenomena and impacts of human industrial and agricultural activities. Explanation of source of Earth's heat energy, determinants of temperature near surface and throughout atmosphere, and how observed seasonal and spatial variations are created. Introduction to various motion systems in atmosphere and ocean and their governing physical laws. Exploration of nature and causes of past changes in global climate evident in paleo-records. Survey of current understanding of ongoing human-caused climate change event, and how climate models are used to develop projections of future climate change. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2023 - I love Professor Williams! Hands down one of my favorite physical geography classes I have ever taken at UCLA. He is very passionate about what he is teaching. The figures on the slides are mostly made by himself, which makes it even more impressive. I have learned much about climate science and gained more appreciation for it. Even though I was trained to be a more human geographer, this class is A MUST if you are a geography major. The workload is reasonable with weekly lab questions (4-5 questions based on the lectures), a midterm, and a final. The exams are reasonable, and lab questions help you understand and learn the materials better. The textbook is helpful but unnecessary since it will cover everything in the slides anyway, but exploring more within the topics is good. The lecture attendance is not mandatory, but it is vital to fully understand the materials since the slides can be very bare bones. During my quarter, he also recorded the lecture, but it is not guaranteed that the video might be of good quality. The order of the lecture topics makes a lot of sense, building on one another and expanding my knowledge of this discipline. Overall, I enjoyed the class a lot and would recommend it to anyone interested in this field, especially to those majoring in geography, of course!
Spring 2023 - I love Professor Williams! Hands down one of my favorite physical geography classes I have ever taken at UCLA. He is very passionate about what he is teaching. The figures on the slides are mostly made by himself, which makes it even more impressive. I have learned much about climate science and gained more appreciation for it. Even though I was trained to be a more human geographer, this class is A MUST if you are a geography major. The workload is reasonable with weekly lab questions (4-5 questions based on the lectures), a midterm, and a final. The exams are reasonable, and lab questions help you understand and learn the materials better. The textbook is helpful but unnecessary since it will cover everything in the slides anyway, but exploring more within the topics is good. The lecture attendance is not mandatory, but it is vital to fully understand the materials since the slides can be very bare bones. During my quarter, he also recorded the lecture, but it is not guaranteed that the video might be of good quality. The order of the lecture topics makes a lot of sense, building on one another and expanding my knowledge of this discipline. Overall, I enjoyed the class a lot and would recommend it to anyone interested in this field, especially to those majoring in geography, of course!
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