Why study Climate & Ocean Sciences at Liverpool?

Listen to some of our lecturers

Whatever your science background, our fully-accredited degree programmes in ocean science and our degree in climate science will provide you with a cross-disciplinary range of transferrable skills and knowledge, so that your degree can be a foundation for an exciting and fruitful career.  

In National Student Surveys we are frequently ranked as one of the top UK Universities offering Ocean and Climate Science degrees, with particular strengths in teaching quality and student support.  

We have state of the art teaching facilities and we work closely with colleagues at the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) situated on campus. The City of Liverpool has a long history of dependence on the sea, with the renowned Liverpool waterfront showcasing the history of Liverpool and the sea and providing a present-day focus for cultural events. The resulting influences of so many different cultures makes our city a vibrant and exciting place to live and study.  

Why do we study the oceans and climate?

The ocean stores more than a 1000 times as much heat and 50 times as much carbon as the atmosphere, and so the ocean plays a very important role in shaping Earth’s climate. The ocean also provides people with important food and energy resources. Understanding how the ocean stores and transports carbon and heat, and how it sustains life, is fundamental to understanding how our planet’s climate is changing and how humanity can use the ocean’s resources sustainably. Our degree programmes provide the knowledge and skills that are needed to solve some of the most pressing questions in the ocean’s role in our planet’s climate, how and why our climate is changing, and what might happen in the future. For instance: What evidence is there for climate warming and its causes? How much are the oceans and atmosphere warming and what will happen in the future? How does the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide and warming affect life in the ocean? How quickly are the major ice sheets melting, and how long will the Arctic Ocean be ice-covered? How is sea level changing as the ocean warms?

In 2019 we celebrated 100 years of Ocean Science at the University of Liverpool. You can download our Oceans Centenary Brochure here.

Ocean and Climate Science at Liverpool

Learn about the Ocean & Climate

Have a look at some of the science that we research and teach:

How does the circulation of the Atlantic Ocean affect our climate?

Learn about the importance of microscopic ocean life to Earth’s climate. This is a key area of research at Liverpool, and the concepts are used throughout our teaching.

What happens when a river meets the salty ocean? This is an example of a laboratory practical that students do in year 1.

A future perspective on sea level. Research and teaching about tides, sea level and climate change has been a focus at Liverpool for over 100 years.

You can view many more videos of our work on our OceanClimateAtUoL Youtube channel.