Oregon State University

OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY (OSU) is a four-year research and degree-granting public university, located in Corvallis, Oregon in the United States. Total student enrollment (undergraduate and graduate) is more than 19,000. Eighty-one percent of students are Oregon residents. OSU offers more than 200 academic degree programs and is most noted for engineering, environmental sciences, forestry, oceanography, and pharmacy. The university has more majors, minors, and special programs than any other college in Oregon. OSU is one of only two universities in the United States to be designated as a land-grant, sea-grant, space-grant, and sun-grant institution. Cornell University is the other. The Environmental Sciences (ES) Graduate Program provides curricula leading to M.A., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in environmental science.

The curriculum integrates thinking across disciplines, especially life, physical, and social sciences. Environmental science explores natural processes on Earth and their alteration by human activity. OSU has exceptional strength in many of the disciplines, including science, agriculture, forestry, engineering, public health, liberal arts, social science, and oceanography and atmospheric science. The degrees administered by the program are OSU's contribution to the Joint-Campus Graduate Program for Environmental Sciences, Studies, and Policy, which links environmental graduate programs among the major research universities in Oregon. The ES Graduate Program develops scientists who will be able to ana-lyze and understand environmental systems, predict environmental change, and participate in the management of the environment. Each student completing a major in the ES Graduate Program will perform research and complete a thesis, dissertation, or research project. Each student will complete a core of ES graduate courses that will integrate concepts across the physical sciences, life sciences, and social sciences. Each student will also develop depth in a carefully designed, interdisciplinary area of concentration or track. Tracks that are currently available include ecology, biogeochemistry, social science, quantitative analysis, water resources, and environmental education.

Oregon State University College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences (COAS) is one of the leading oceanography and atmospheric sciences institutions in the nation. Graduate research programs leading to a Masters degree in science or a Doctoral degree are offered at OSU. Advances in understanding and simulating atmospheric boundary layer processes directly support applications to geographically-localized studies of climate and weather, which is of particular value to agriculture, forestry, and the economic development of the Pacific Northwest. Major research initiatives in the area of climate variability and change require expertise in observing and modeling of physics and chemistry of the atmosphere, and in the modeling and analysis of climate variability.

Courses offered at Oregon State University that focus on Global Warming and Climate Change include the following:

ATS 320: Man's Impact on Climate: Survey the climate and the factors that influence the climate. Examine sources for changes in atmospheric composition, the expected consequences of these changes, problems predicting future changes, and what can be done about the changes.

ATS 412: Atmospheric Radiation: Radiative transfer in the Earth and planetary atmospheres, absorption and scattering of sunlight, absorption and emission of terrestrial radiation, absorption and scattering cross sections for molecules, cloud droplets and aerosols. Applications include enhancement of photochemical reaction rates in clouds, remote sensing, and the Earths radiation budget, radiative-convective equilibrium, radiative forcing due to changes in atmospheric composition and climate change.

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