The course includes two main issues of climate change: the global warming and stratospheric ozone depletion. Students will gain the scientific basis to analyze and critique contradicting approaches. Climatic and environmental impacts and policy issues related to global warming and ozone depletion will be studied.  

 

The course objectives include:

1.     A general overview of the natural greenhouse effect and the radiative balance

2.     Reconstructing past climate change: the ice age climate cycles - Milankovitch theory, volcano effects, climate through the last 1000 years -the last millennium and the little ice age

3.     Greenhouse gases: past emission variations, present conditions and future scenarios

4.     Observations period: climate variability and change along the last decades; global and regional scales

5.     Future scenarios for climate change and uncertainties

6.     Stratospheric ozone: spatio-temporal variations in ozone concentrations; past and future scenarios and relations with global warming

7.     Climate Change and the Political Realm –Kyoto, Den Haag, Copenhagen, Paris etc.: what is (not) happening?

Introduction to climate and environmental aspects (0691.1503.01)