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Or if you wanted to get real and get down to the nitty gritty, you gotta check out the open access courses that Professor David Archer PhD from the University of Chicago put together.  But this one requires a certain level of scientific understand, and only the serious need apply.  The dilettantes won’t have a chance keeping up with the actual science – serious lay people such as myself have a hell of time keeping up.

Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast is a comprehensive introduction to all aspects of global warming. Written in an accessible way, and assuming no specialist prior knowledge, this book examines the processes that control climate change and climate stability, from the distant past to the distant future.

Second Edition now shipping. Thoroughly revised and updated but basically the same material.

On-line interactive computer models allow you to play with the physics and chemistry behind the global warming forecast.

 

Global Warming: The Science of Climate Change is running now on Coursera, a not-for-profit education company that partners with the top universities and organizations in the world to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free. The video lectures have been completely redone in a punchy 2-10 minute format, with revamped exercises using the updated online models interspersed throughout.

 

Open Climate 101 brings the experience of University of Chicago class PHSC13400, part of our “core” science curriculum for non-science major undergraduates based on this text, to the internet at large. However, this class seems supplanted by the updated content in the Coursera class (above), so unless lots of people request otherwise, Open Climate 101 will shut down on or about Jan 1, 2014.

 

Videos of lectures, both in ~45 minute classroom format (recorded Fall, 2009, University of Chicago), and in a 2-12 minute topical format intended for on-line learning (recorded Summer, 2013).

 

Amazon
Kindle edition

“Global Warming – Understanding the Forecast.”  Video Lectures. Professor David Archer

Classroom format (~45 minutes)
Topical Coursera format (2-12 minutes)

Chapter 1
Intro
Welcome (6:01)
Using Units (3:44)
Units of Energy (5:12)
Units of Light (3:16)

Chapter 2
Heat and Light
Blackbody Radiation and Quantum Mechanics
Heat (4:15)
Light (5:48)
Blackbody Radiation (6:07)

Chapter 3
Our First Climate Model
The Greenhouse Effect
Naked Planet Climate Model (8:13)
The Greenhouse Effect (9:41)

Chapter 4
What Makes a Greenhouse Gas
Greenhouse Gases in the Atmosphere
Greenhouse Gas Physics (7:42)
The Band Saturation Effect (12:41)

Chapter 5
What Holds the Atmosphere Up
Why It’s Colder Aloft
Atmospheric Temperature Structure (8:38)
Pressure in a Standing Fluid (10:58)
Water Vapor and Latent Heat (8:30)
Moist Convection (2:01)

Chapter 6
Wind, Currents, and Heat
Heat Transport (3:29)
Coriolis Acceleration (5:25)
Geostrophic Motion (5:21)
The Turbulent Cascade (3:27)

Chapter 7
Ice and Water Vapor Feedbacks
Clouds
Positive and Negative Feedbacks (4:36)
Ice Albedo Feedback (2:17)
Water Vapor Feedback (7:01)
Clouds (9:15)
Aerosols (5:48)
Climate Sensitivity (4:38)

Chapter 8
The Weathering CO2 Thermostat
Lungs of the Carbon Cycle
The Weathering CO₂ Thermostat (8:44)
The Goldilocks Planets (3:41)
The Oceans in the Carbon Cycle (5:15)
The Land Surface in the Carbon Cycle (5:28)

Chapter 9
The Battery of the Biosphere
Coal and Oil
Oil and Methane
The Battery of the Biosphere (5:16)
Oxidation and Reduction of Carbon (6:11)
Coal (4:20)
Oil (6:59)
Natural Gas (2:30)
Forecasting Future Emissions (3:38)

Chapter 10
The Carbon Cycle Today
The Long Thaw
Human Impact on the Carbon Cycle (3:12)
Ocean Buffer Chemistry (6:14)
The Perturbed Carbon Cycle (2:42)
Methane as a Greenhouse Gas (8:49)
The Long CO₂ Tail (5:37)
Why the CO₂ Tail Matters (6:35)

Chapter 11
The Smoking Gun
The Present in the Bosom of the Past
Land Surface Temperature Records (4:15)
Sea Surface Temperature Records (3:20)
Satellite Temperature Records (2:26)
The Smoking Gun: Warming Since the 1970s (6:54)
Paleoclimate and Proxy Measurements (3:46)
Tree Rings (4:25)
Borehole Temperatures (2:48)
Oxygen Isotopes (4:45)
Solar Intensity and the Hockey Stick (6:19)
Glacial – Interglacial Cycles (6:24)

Chapter 12
Six Degrees
Global Weirding (3:48)
Monsoons (2:09)
Vegetation (2:57)
Impacts of Sea Level (2:01)
Antarctic Ice Sheet (2:52)
Greenland Ice Sheet (3:55)
Paleo Sea Level Changes (2:11)
Water Vapor and Storminess (1:02)
Hurricanes (3:14)
Extreme Weather (1:40)
Ecosystem Impacts (2:31)
Human Impacts (1:41)

Chapter 13
Hot, Flat, and Crowded
Stabilization Scenarios (2:27)
Temperature Targets (1:52)
Slug Theory (5:42)
Geoengineering: CO₂ Capture and Sequestration (6:47)
Geoengineering: Solar Radiation Management (3:57)
Economics of Climate Change (8:50)
Mitigation: Short-Term (4:18)
Mitigation: Long-Term (3:55)