ESS-33306 Climate Change: Impacts, Adaptation and Mitigation

Course

Credits 6.00

Language of instruction:

English

Assumed knowledge on:

ESS-31806 Biogeochemical Cycles; ESS-32306 Earth System Modelling or MAQ-32306 Boundary-layer Processes

Continuation courses:

Thesis Earth System Science

Contents:

The course provides the latest insights with respect to the thematic debate on climate change, including the latest scientific assessments of the impacts and the possibilities to cope with the risks associated with climate change by adaptation and mitigation. The course consists of three main sections, corresponding to the 3 Working Group Fourth Assessment reports (WGI, WGII, and WGIII, respectively):
- the Physical Science Basis; functioning of current and future climate systems on global and regional scale; - impacts on natural and managed systems and possibilities for adaptation;
- mitigation options; measures and strategies to reduce climate change.
The topic of the course lies on the crossroad of several scientific disciplines. Therefore, not only the natural systems and natural sciences will be discussed but also attention will be paid to socio-economic and policy aspects. Particularly this will be true for the adaptation and mitigation section of the course.

Learning outcomes:

After completing the course students should be able to:
- understand and critically evaluate the scientific insights underlying the assessment reports of the IPCC, with a focus on impacts, adaptation and mitigation; critically distinguish between misconceptions, certainties and uncertainties in the climate change debate;
- develop, more generally, an ability to differentiate between fact-based knowledge and opinion;
- appreciate and analyze the nature of evidence used to suggest that anthropogenic and or natural climate change is occurring;
- demonstrate an understanding of the key barriers and drivers influencing the responses to climate change on a global and regional scale;
- demonstrate an understanding of how the threats and opportunities of predicted climate change will influence specific sectors at global and regional scale;
- critically evaluate the relative opportunities and needs for mitigation and adaptation (including vulnerability assessments) in a variety of sectoral contexts;
- apply the above knowledge in analyzing and evaluating issues on this topic within restricted time.

Activities:

The activities consist of:
- class room lectures;
- practical work; working with IPCC datasets, including supporting analysis and visualization tools;
- literature essay that focus on a specific subject related to adaptation and/or mitigation;
- writing a report and giving a presentation;
The lecturers will discuss the main issues of the Technical Summaries of WGI, II and III. In addition, external experts will be invited to discuss a specific topic with respect to adaptation and mitigation.
Students get the opportunity to perform a case study on a particular issue related to adaptation and/or mitigation (activities 2, 3 and 4). In this case study, a coupling is made between the IPCC climate scenarios for a particular region, impacts and adaptation and/or mitigation strategies. This activity will take place throughout the course. The list of issues, from which a selection may be made, will be available in week 1 of the course.

Examination:

Course participants are expected to attend teaching sessions and actively participate in class discussions and group work (literature essays; model simulation study). Assessment of students' achievement of the learning objectives will be determined as follows:
- 50% group presentations of case studies/literature essay;
- 50% individual final written exam composed of essay questions.
Scores of the individual elements should be satisfactory (>5.5) for passing the exam.

Literature:

The course material includes hard copies of the 3 Working Group IPCC Fourth Assessment Reports at Technical Summary level which is mandatory reading for the exam. In addition, each student gets a CD-ROM with the underlying IPCC reports that can be used as reference material. A practical manual will be handed out at the start of the practical part of the course. Furthermore, relevant material will be provided through the Course website on EDUWEB.