3 ECTS credits
90 h study time
Offer 1 with catalog number 4021625ENR for all students in the 1st semester at a (E) Master - advanced level.
A. Interactions between atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere in a changing climate (2 ECTS)
- Land surface controls on historical and future changes in climate
- Cycles in the earth system (energy, water, carbon) and their interactions
- Land-climate interactions (e.g. soil-moisture temperature coupling, surface energy balance, compound events)
- Regional and global impacts of land use and land cover changes on climate (biogeophysical and biogeochemical effects).
- Links between climate, human water management and water scarcity.
- Impacts of climate change across sectors, with a focus on impacts on water resources
- Science supporting the Paris Agreement and ongoing climate negotiations (carbon budget, climate action tracker, transient climate response to cumulative CO2 emissions, land-based mitigation)
B. Modelling land-climate interactions (1 ECTS)
- Earth system sensitivity to complex feedbacks: the case of daisy world.
- Running global-scale simulations with the Community Land Model (CLM), perform and analyse a sensitivity experiment.
- Programming in your web browser: using the Google Earth Engine, the ESA Earthsytemdatacube or the ECMWF Climate Data Store.
More than ever, in-depth understanding of climate change is needed to inform the public and policy makers for its possibly consequences. This course provides the basic principles required the understand the functioning of the climate system, and how this functioning is changing due to greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, this course provides master students with an overview of the physical processes in which the Earth’s surface interacts with the climate system, and of the implication this has for future water availability.
Finally, there is currently a high demand for employees with data science skills, i.e. scientists who can effectively organize and analyze large datasets to gain useful insights. The strong emphasis on exercises in this course prepares the students for jobs with an emphasis on data preparation, modeling, validation and visualization.
Prerequisites and corequisites:
At least three of the following courses (or a similar course) must be completed (prerequisite):
- Weer- en klimaatkunde (KUL; B-KUL-G0P01B)
- Klimatologie en meteorologie (VUB; 1003956BNR)
- Environmental Change (KUL; B-KUL-G9X30A)
- Atmospheric Modelling (KUL; B-KUL-G0B78A)
Students not meeting this prerequisite are encouraged to enrol for the 5 ECTS variant of this course, entitled Land-climate Dynamics
In addition, students should be experienced in programming in a high-level programming language (e.g. Python, R, Matlab, preferably Python). A non-exhaustive overview of courses teaching this skill is listed hereafter:
- Environmental programming (VUB; B-KUL-I0W00A)
- Introduction to geoprocessing (KUL; B-KUL-G0S73A)
- Geographical Research Methods 3: Numerical Modelling (KUL; B-KUL-G0V87A)
At the end of this course, the students will be able to
- Be familiar with the different cycles in the earth system (energy, water, carbon) and their interactions
- Have an in-depth understanding of land-climate interactions
- Know the regional and global impacts of land use and land cover changes on climate.
- Understand the links between climate, human water management and water scarcity.
- Be familiar with the impacts of climate change across sectors, with a focus on impacts on water resources
- Understand the science supporting the Paris Agreement and the ongoing climate negotiations
- Use a cloud computing infrastructure (e.g. Google Earth Engine)
- Test feedbacks between components of the climate system
- Run (part of) a state-of-the-art global climate model
The final grade is composed based on the following categories:
Other Exam determines 100% of the final mark.
Within the Other Exam category, the following assignments need to be completed:
The final grade will be based on the following evaluations:
Oral exam: 60%
Written exam: 20%
Report 1: 10%
Cloud application: 10%
This offer is part of the following study plans:
Master of Geography: Standaard traject (only offered in Dutch)
Master of Geography: Standard track