THE CLIMATE SYSTEM AND ITS VARIABILITY

This course will provide the students with fundamental notions regarding Earth’s climate and its recent evolution, and basic understanding of its functioning. The students will become familiar with the terminology used in current climate research, and build confidence on communication of major topics within the current climate change discussion. Throughout the course, lectures will draw from iconic historical events (such as mass migrations, the discovery of the Americas, the Little Ice Age, the early 19th century famines and the year without a summer, the US megadroughts, the ozone hole) as motivation to explore fundamental processes operating in the Earth System that also crucially impact humanities. The course is qualitative, hence knowledge of physics and mathematics will not be considered as a prerequisite and will be only touched during the lectures.

basic understanding of the functioning of the climate system, familiarity with the terminology adopted in current climate research, confidence in the communication of climate change facts

This course is a required/elective course offered to students enrolled in the Master Degree in the Environmental Humanities. No prior background in the subject is required.

Section 1: definition of climate; concepts of radiative forcing and forcing agents (the Sun, greenhouse gases, aerosols), energy balance of Earth and energy transports (including convection). Section 2: climate sensitivity, climate feedbacks, large-scale circulation of the atmosphere, the ocean thermohaline circulation, sea ice. Section 3: from global to regional climates: modes of climate variability; monsoons; the Mediterranean climate; extreme events. Section 4: monitoring Earth’s climate, numerical climate models and the simulation of Earth’s climate, climate prediction and projection; chaos, intrinsic climate variability and uncertainty; geoengineering; the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and its assessment reports, Section 5: Venice and relative sea level rise: understanding changes in the instrumental tidal record and exploring possible future evolutions.

"Introduction to Climate Science" ebook by Andreas Schmittner (Oregon State University), also available online for free.
"Introduction to climate dynamics and climate modelling" freely available at: http://www.climate.be/textbook/ebook.html
Peixoto J.P., Oort A.H. Physics of climate, 1992, 520 pp.
IPCC-AR5 report and IPCC specific reports, available here: https://www.ipcc.ch/reports/

oral exam on the topics of the lectures. Students are invited to begin with a presentation based on a scientific or divulgative article, or a piece of art (painting, movie, book,...) linked with climate physics, even in a hidden way. Examples will be proposed in class.

oral

28-30L: full grasp on the topics covered in class and in supporting texts; ability to prioritize information; use of appropriate technical terminology;
26-27: good knowledge of the topics covered in class and, to a lesser extent, in supporting texts; fair ability to organize information and present it orally; familiarity with technical terminology;
24-25: not always in-depth knowledge of the topics covered in class and in supporting texts; generally clear oral presentation but not always with correct use of technical terminology;
22-23: often superficial knowledge of the topics covered in class and in supporting texts; unclear oral presentation and lacking in technical terminology;
18-21: knowledge of the topics covered in class and in supporting texts is at times incomplete; confused oral presentation, with little use of technical terminology.

frontal lectures and discussions