The Earth's climate has always been changing, but in recent years there has been growing concern that the changes are man-made. This has led to a major political interest in climate research and to decisions to spend huge resources on countering climate change.
However, climate systems are extremely complex, and much of our understanding of the climate is based on model calculations.
In the lecture we will look at some of the components of the climate system, historical changes in the climate and especially on changes in the sun's activity as the cause of some of the climate change.