701-1317-00L  Global Biogeochemical Cycles and Climate

SemesterSpring Semester 2018
LecturersN. Gruber, M. Vogt
Periodicityyearly recurring course
Language of instructionEnglish


AbstractThe human-induced emissions of carbon dioxide has led to atmospheric CO2 concentrations that Earth likely has no’t seen for the last 30 million years. This course aims to investigate and understand the impact of humans on Earth's biogeochemical cycles with a focus on the carbon cycle and its interaction with the physical climate system for the past, the present, and the future.
Learning objectiveThis course aims to investigate the nature of the interaction between biogeochemical cycles on land and in the ocean with climate and how this interaction has evolved over time and will change in the future. Students are expected to participate actively in the course, which includes the critical reading of the pertinent literature and class presentations.
ContentTopics discussed include: The anthropogenic perturbation of the global carbon cycle and climate. Response of land and oceanic ecosystems to past and future global changes; Interactions between biogeochemical cycles on land and in the ocean; Biogeochemical processes controlling carbon dioxide and oxygen in the ocean and atmosphere on time-scales from a few years to a few hundred thousand years.
Lecture notesSarmiento & Gruber (2006), Ocean Biogeochemical Dynamics, Princeton University Press. Additional handouts will be provided as needed. see website: http://www.up.ethz.ch/education/biogeochem_cycles
LiteratureSarmiento & Gruber (2006), Ocean Biogeochemical Dynamics, Princeton University Press, 526pp.

MacKenzie, F. T. (1999), Global biogeochemical cycles and the physical climate system, Global Change Instruction Program, UCAR, Boulder, CO, 69pp.

W. H. Schlesinger (1997), Biogeochemistry: An Analysis of Global Change, Academic Press.

Original literature.