CLIMATE MODELLING AND MONITORING

The course provides insights into Climate Modelling and Environmental Monitoring. Specifically, the students will acquire general knowledge about climate dynamics and how to study them through observational and numerical methods.

The students will acquire the physical-mathematical bases for understanding the fundamental processes that regulate the Earth's climate and the contribution of the major subsystems. They will learn the hierarchy of climate models and their use. They will learn different numerical methods to discretize differential equations.
They will have an overall understanding of the main techniques used to measure climate variables.
The students will learn how to work on climate data during the practical classes.

Basic knowledge of fluid dynamics, numerical methods, Earth's climate and Physical Climatology.

Module 1: Climate dynamics
- climate system components
- energy balance and transport
- hydrological cycle
- carbon cycle

Module 2: Climate modelling
- definition and hierarchy of the climate models
- basic equations
- types of grids, resolution, spatial and temporal discretization methods
- testing the validity of the models
- numerical experiments, ensembles and scenarios
- regional climate models

Module 3: Climate monitoring
- climate observations (in situ measurements and remote sensing)
- reanalyses
- future projections

Module 4: data analysis
This part consists of two sessions of practical exercises with the Matlab software. The students will perform some simple computations on climate data. Assignments are expected to be due during these lectures.

- Overview of some of the main repositories for climate observations and simulations
- NetCDF files
- Basic computations on gridded data, model ensembles and time series (time and spatial averages, ensemble mean, trend, extreme values)
- How to plot the data

Textbook: Goosse H., P.Y. Barriat, W. Lefebvre, M.F. Loutre and V. Zunz, (2008-2010). Introduction to climate dynamics and climate modeling.
http://www.climate.be/textbook/contents.html
http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/climdyn2019/Goosse.pdf

Additional suggested material:
Hartmann, D. L. Global Physical Climatology. Elsevier Science, 2015.

During the course, the slides and additional material will be provided

Progresses will be verified through the assigned practical exercises. At the end of the course, students will have to take an oral exam.

Face-to-face lectures and practical exercises

English

oral

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Climate change and energy" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development