Admission requirements
Required course(s):
- Climate Change
Recommended course(s):
Quantitative Research Methods, and/or
Geographic Information Systems
Description
Numerical models are pivotal in designing effective climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies. An important example are the General Circulation Models (GCMs). These models enable the construction of future climate scenarios – used by the IPCC - and the evaluation of climate change impacts. Beyond GCMs, various other models play a role in studying climate mitigation and adaptation strategies. For instance, hydrologic models help design flood infrastructure in riverine and coastal regions, ice sheet models forecast sea-level rise, and biogeochemical models detect potential harmful algal blooms. A solid grasp of climate system modeling is essential for scientists to effectively analyze and interpret model data.
Yet, the climate is an intricate system, not easily captured by simple linear equations. To make models truly useful, a deep comprehension of these complex interactions and the skills to represent them in a model framework are necessary.
This course provides an introduction to the functions, benefits, and limitations of several earth system models. Students will have the opportunity to build basic models and work with outputs from widely used datasets. Throughout the course, we will examine various models to understand adaptation and mitigation strategies for addressing climate change.
Course Objectives
Content
At the end of the course students can:
Comprehensively characterize climate system models and assess their quality.
Describe the basics of General Circulation Models, reanalysis data, and hydrologic models.
Describe how different types of models can be calibrated, validated and used for prediction.
Describe possible problems with capturing complex natural processes in a model, and the potential solutions.
Skills
At the end of the course students can:
Analyses different types of Earth system data
Build simple statical models in R
Build simple hydrological models in HEC-RAS
Employ Earth system models to design climate change solution strategies
Timetable
Timetables for courses offered at Leiden University College in 2024-2025 will be published on this page of the e-Prospectus.
Mode of instruction
The main goal of this course is for students to become comfortable with building simple models in R or external software. Naturally the course will cover some theory regarding Earth system processes, but mostly we will work together to build simple models. Classes will start with lectures presenting the necessary background to study climate models. Next students will work (together) on computer exercises in which they apply the concepts from the lectures. Students will learn to apply reanalysis data and the HEC-RAS software to study climate policies.
Throughout the course we will use the program language R. Student should be able to at least open an R script and run it.
Assessment Method
Participation (15%)
Graded homework: (10%)
Lab I: Sandbox (10%)
Lab II: Reanalysis Data (20%)
Lab III: HEC-RAS (15%)
Group poster: Policy Evaluation (30%)
Reading list
- Thinking in Systems: A Primer by Donella Meadows.
A reader with papers will be made available at the start of class.
Registration
Courses offered at Leiden University College (LUC) are usually only open to LUC students and LUC exchange students. Leiden University students who participate in one of the university’s Honours tracks or programmes may register for one LUC course, if availability permits. Registration is coordinated by the Education Coordinator, course.administration@luc.leidenuniv.nl.
Contact
Dr. Joeri Reinders, j.b.reinders@luc.leidenuniv.nl
Remarks
This is course is an adaptation of the Earth System Modeling course offered in 2023/2024 with similar learning outcomes.