Climate 101 - Online and Free - NYTimes.com January 16, 2012, 2:19 pm As part of the trend in higher education toward moving more course offerings onto the Web, the University of Chicago has launched Open Climate 101, an online version of a popular course led by David Archer that explores for non-science majors the body of research pointing to a rising human influence on the climate system. It's built around Archer's climate text, "Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast" (sample chapter). I have a particular affection for that title. Here's Archer's course description and links to some of the course videos: Open Climate 101 brings the experience of University of Chicago class PHSC13400, part of our "core" science curriculum for non-science major undergraduates based on this text, to the internet at large. You can watch video lectures followed by quizzes to stimulate your understanding, and work your way through tutorial exercises letting you get hands-on with interactive models and simple mathematical ideas. You can work at your own pace, on your own time. You don't get University of Chicago credit, but it's free, and if you complete the exercises you can download a certificate of accomplishment signed by me. Here's a sampler of the videotaped lectures: Heat and Light The Greenhouse Effect Ice and Water Vapor Feedbacks Clouds The Long Thaw As Archer explained on a RealClimate post today noting the launch, he developed the course with his colleague Raymond T. Pierrehumbert in 1995. What other online educational offerings on climate (and energy) are out there - particularly free ones like this?