Climate: Past, Present, and Future

Climate and climate change are topics in the news on a nearly daily basis. To fully understand climate change, we need to start by understanding climate. Throughout the week we will explore the world’s climate systems, the factors that drive the formation of and changes to climate systems, the types of data we harness to understand the climate of the past and the basis for future climate predictions as well as the uncertainty involved in climate data and prediction. We will spend this week exploring aspects of climate and climate change from a global down to a local perspective including what science reveals about our potential climate in the future as well as possible impacts of various human actions.

Kim Browning, who currently teaches at NCSSM-Morganton, has taught various Chemistry courses at the college and high school levels over the past three decades. In addition, she has also taught courses in Geography which explore the interaction between humans, their actions and the world around them. Climate change as well as native species distributions are two areas that really interest her and she is passionate about sharing that knowledge. She also enjoys volunteer work ranging from Science Olympiad to 18th Century Living History.