Lecturer: Peter deMenocal -Director of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University, Professor of Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory

College introduction: Columbia University, located in Manhattan, New York City, USA, was founded in 1754 according to the King's Charter issued by King George II of England. It is a private Ivy League school.

Course introduction: The first unit is about the past and future climate, discussing climate change and global warming, studying the historical situation, and proposing various possible solutions in the future. The second unit is mainly about human evolution, explaining how human became such a unique species, and exploring the possible relationship between the process of climate change and human evolution. Unit 3 discusses the catastrophic event of dinosaur extinction, gives various assumptions and evidence in recent research, and explains the importance of rare events to the historical process.