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Integrate Penn State University University of New Orleans Shippensburg University

The History of the World

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This is a “minitext” that was originally written by Dr. Richard Alley for Geosciences 320, Geology of Climate Change, at Penn State. It provides a short history of the world’s climate over the last 4.6 billion years. It assumes a little more background knowledge than is expected in the rest of the class, but may be useful.

  • Deep Time
  • Snowball Earth
  • Nature Has Changed Carbon Dioxide a Lot
  • Greenhouse to Icehouse
  • Abrupt Changes Have Punctuated Climate History
  • The Last Century - Humanity Takes Over
  • A Parting Thought
‹ The Vostok Ice Core up Deep Time ›

Earth 104: Energy, Environment and Our Future

Modules

  • Unit 1: Energy and Environment
    • Module 1: Why Energy Matters
    • Module 2: What is Energy?
    • Module 3: Oil, Coal & Natural Gas | Drilling, Fracking & Reserves
    • Module 4: Global Warming - Physics
    • Module 5: Global Warming - History
      • Goals and Objectives
      • Roadmap
      • Who Did Start the Fire?
      • The Projection Project
      • Self-Assessment
      • Module Summary
      • Enrichments
        • Volcanoes Cool and Warm, without Doubletalk
        • The Vostok Ice Core
        • The History of the World
          • Deep Time
          • Snowball Earth
          • Nature Has Changed Carbon Dioxide a Lot
          • Greenhouse to Icehouse
          • Abrupt Changes Have Punctuated Climate History
          • The Last Century - Humanity Takes Over
          • A Parting Thought
  • Unit 2: Comparing Energy Choices
  • Unit 3: A Path Forward

Authors: Richard B. Alley, Professor, The Pennsylvania State University, Seth Blumsack, Professor, The Pennsylvania State University, David Bice, Professor, The Pennsylvania State University, Team Lead: Maureen Feineman, Professor, The Pennsylvania State University. Learning Designer: April Millet, The Pennsylvania State University

This courseware module is offered as part of the Repository of Open and Affordable Materials at Penn State.

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