Inside the Climate System: A Quantitative Way of Learning Climate Science
EES 2110: Introduction to Climate Science is designed as a rigorous, quantitative science course that brings students directly into the logic and methods of climate research. Rather than treating climate change as a set of conclusions to memorize, the course centers on the climate system itself: how it works, how we model it, and how we test our understandings using data.
The backbone of the course is physical climate science. Students work through energy balance, radiation laws, the greenhouse effect, atmospheric circulation, and the hydrologic cycle using simplified but rigorous mathematical frameworks. Basic algebra is used throughout the semester to build and interpret models of temperature, energy budgets, and water cycling. The goal is not mathematical complexity for its own sake, but quantitative clarity: students learn how a small number of physical principles can explain large-scale climate behavior and patterns.
A defining feature of the course is its emphasis on doing climate science rather than just reading about it. Students regularly analyze real climate data and build simple computational workflows using Python to explore trends, variability, and spatial structure. These activities reflect how climate scientists actually work, posing questions, testing ideas against data, and refining interpretations when the evidence demands it. For many students, this is their first experience treating climate not just as a topic, but as a system that can be measured, modeled, and investigated.
Class time is built around active engagement: problem solving at the board, small-group discussions, and guided derivations that make the physics of the climate system visible and concrete. Students do not just see equations, they use them to reason about why the climate has the structure it does, how energy is transported around the planet, and how changes in greenhouse gases reshape that balance. The collaborative classroom environment makes quantitative thinking more approachable and helps students build confidence working through complex ideas together.
The course also connects theory to observation. Through field-based and observational experiences, including visits to Vanderbilt’s Dyer Observatory, students see how measurements of radiation and the atmosphere are actually made, and how those measurements anchor climate science in evidence. These experiences reinforce a central message of the course: climate science is not abstract speculation, but a measurement-driven, testable, and continually evolving scientific discipline.
EES 2110 welcomes students from many majors and backgrounds, and it is structured to support them as they engage seriously with quantitative reasoning, physical models, and data analysis. By the end of the semester, students are not only familiar with the major components of the climate system, but have also practiced the core habits of scientific thinking: building models, testing them with data, and revising ideas based on evidence.
In this way, “Introduction to Climate Science” is more than an overview of climate change. It is an invitation into the inner workings of the climate system itself, and into the quantitative, evidence-based way scientists come to understand a changing climate.
Husile Bai, PhD
Assistant Professor of the Practice in Earth and Environmental Sciences and Climate and Environmental Studies