The Climate Science Degree (CSD) program integrates basic and applied principles of meteorology, climatology with environmental physics, which are concerned with how natural laws determine the climate. Physical oceanography and land surface physics are also part of climate science because the Earths climate variability is strongly coupled to the oceans and land surface. In addition, interactions between land ecosystems, water and climate are studied. This includes understanding and measurements of the atmosphere, soil, water and plants, and how the data are used to address practical issues related to climate change.
Climate change is the most important environmental and hazard issues of our time. The purpose of CSD is to train the next generation of global leaders in climate and climate change sciences. CSD is focused on understanding the nature and change of our climate system by applying the principles of mathematics and physics.
The undergraduate degree program emphasizes the scientific study of the behavior of weather and climate, and applications to the important practical problems of climate prediction. CSD is unique in that it incorporates fundamental knowledge of physical climate with the emergence of a new and more complete approach, encompassing all components of the climate system—atmosphere, water, and land surface—to gain a comprehensive understanding of climate change as we face it.