Welcome

Welcome to climateeducation.net. Read about the programme below, or learn about our free online course An introduction to the science of climate and climate change.

It is now widely accepted that human activities are very likely responsible for most of the recent warming of the global climate system through increasing the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. These result from burning fossil fuels to provide energy for industry, transport and heating and from agriculture and deforestation. Moreover, we are committed to further future climate changes from the existing levels of greenhouse gases and the certainty, at least in the short term, that these will increase further.

In order to plan for the effects of these future changes in climate we need to know the changes most likely to occur on a regional scale. For example, a water engineer in Kenya might be most interested in the predictions about drought in Kenya’s Turkana district, whilst a city planner in London will more likely need to know the expected change in the occurence of storm surges in order to begin planning flood defences now. Currently, one of the few methods of acquiring this sort of information is via the use of a regional climate model.

Until now, regional climate prediction knowledge has been accessible only to a handful of scientists. The climateeducation.net programme aims to change this by offering global access to innovative online learning materials about regional climate change. These will enable scientists, climate practitioners and policy-makers in a range of sectors, including industry, government and NGOs, to understand and exploit regional climate predictions.

The climateeducation.net programme combines climate prediction expertise from the University of Oxford’s climateprediction.net team and the UK Met Office Hadley Centre’s PRECIS team with the University of Oxford Department for Continuing Education's expertise in delivering innovative and effective education and training solutions. climateeducation.net will utilise advanced training delivery technology, together with state-of-the-art climate modelling research outputs, to create two online training courses:

• Course One: An Introduction to the Science of Climate and Climate Change
• Course Two: The Design and Application of Regional Climate Model Experiments

In addition, climateeducation.net aims to build and support an international community of practice in climate prediction inclusive of countries where such expertise is not readily available. Participants of the first online training course will automatically become members of the community upon registration. Other experienced climate practitioners will also be welcomed, allowing members to exchange knowledge and experience of climate modelling.

If you would like to be kept informed about when the courses are available, and the project more generally, please register your interest.