Climate change and impacts

Duration

15h Th, 45h Pr

Number of credits

Lecturer

Louis François, Guy Munhoven

Coordinator

Louis François

Language(s) of instruction

English language

Organisation and examination

All year long, with partial in January

Schedule

Schedule online

Units courses prerequisite and corequisite

Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program

Learning unit contents

This course provides a synthesis of ongoing and future climate change and of its impacts on the environment and human societies. It is mostly based upon the IPCC report, which is available from the world-wide web. The following themes are covered:

1. Overview of the climate system;
2. Greenhouse effect and radiative forcing;
3. Carbon cycle and greenhouse gas balances;
4. Climate change during the 20th century: data analysis and models;
5. Past climate changes: methods of reconstruction and synthesis of observations (last millennium, Holocene, Pleistocene)
6. Future climate change: SRES socio-econimic scenarios and IPCC climate projections
7. Climate change impacts (sea-level, hydrology, terrestrial and marine ecosystems, human societies).

Learning outcomes of the learning unit

This course provides an introduction to the problematics of global climate change.

Prerequisite knowledge and skills

Basic knowledge about how of physical, chemical and biological processes control Earth's evolution.

Planned learning activities and teaching methods

By way of tutorials, bibliographic homeworks dealing with subjects related to various themes covered during the lectures will be proposed to students. Each student may chose a subject he/she is interested in. This way, they have the chance to improve on the basics covered by the main lectures. They are expected to produce a written text of 10 to 15 pages and to make a short oral presentation for the class or for secondary school students.

Mode of delivery (face-to-face ; distance-learning)

The course is organised during the first semester and the beginning of the second semester along three modules : - theory (15 h) - bibliographic homeworks (40h) - oral presentation of bibliographic homeworks and debates (5 h)
Schedule 2018-2019: Tuesday afternoon 13h00-17h00 during the first semester (Sep 18 to Dec 18) + some lectures during the second semester) 

Recommended or required readings

Online IPCC publications:

• IPCC Third Assessment Report - Climate Change 2001
• Various Special Reports ...

• Working Group I: The Physical Basis of Climate Change
• Working Group II: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
• Working Group III: Mitigation of Climate Change.

Assessment methods and criteria

An oral examination is organised on the theoretical module. The bibibliographic homework (written report and oral presentation) is also evaluated.
The notes are weighted as follows:
- oral examination (30%)
- bibliographic homework: written report (40%)
- bibliographic homework: oral presentation (30%)
When one of the three tests has not been presented, the global note will not be larger than 7/20 and the credits will not be attributed to the course, even if the weighted mean is larger than 10/20.
It is mandatory for the students to attend the preparation sessions of the oral presentation. In case of absence, the student will not be admitted to this part of the examination. 

Work placement(s)

Organizational remarks

Contacts

Louis François, Professor, Unit for Climate and Biogeochemical Cycles Modelling (UMCCB), Institute of Astrophysics et and Geophysics (B5c build.), Phone: (+32) (4) 366-9776 e-mail: Louis.Francois@ulg.ac.be

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