The course will focus upon the dynamics of the climate system and therefore upon the coupled evolution of the atmosphere and oceans including also the inter-linkage of these primary system components to the cryosphere and to land surface processes.

Topics may include: Solar forcing and its intrinsic temporal variability as well as it apparent variability due to variations in the Earth's orbit around the Sun; Simple energy balance models of the variations of the amplitude and phase of the seasonal cycle due to the distribution of continents and oceans; The general circulations of the atmosphere and oceans as represented by modern coupled atmosphere -ocean general circulation models; The monsoon circulations; The El Nino Southern Oscillation phenomenon; The North Atlantic Oscillation/Arctic Oscillation and the polar "annular modes"; Ice ages and paleoclimatology including the "snowball" Earth phenomenon of the deep geological past.