701-1257-00L European Climate Change
| Semester | Autumn Semester 2021 |
| Lecturers | C. Schär, J. Rajczak, S. C. Scherrer |
| Periodicity | yearly recurring course |
| Language of instruction | English |
| Abstract | The lecture provides an overview of climate change in Europe, from a physical and atmospheric science perspective. It covers the following topics: • observational datasets, observation and detection of climate change; • underlying physical processes and feedbacks; • numerical and statistical approaches; • currently available projections. |
| Learning objective | At the end of this course, participants should: • understand the key physical processes shaping climate change in Europe; • know about the methodologies used in climate change studies, encompassing observational, numerical, as well as statistical approaches; • be familiar with relevant observational and modeling data sets; • be able to tackle simple climate change questions using available data sets. |
| Content | Contents: • global context • observational data sets, analysis of climate trends and climate variability in Europe • global and regional climate modeling • statistical downscaling • key aspects of European climate change: intensification of the water cycle, Polar and Mediterranean amplification, changes in extreme events, changes in hydrology and snow cover, topographic effects • projections of European and Alpine climate change |
| Lecture notes | Slides and lecture notes will be made available at http://www.iac.ethz.ch/edu/courses/master/electives/european-climate-change.html |
| Prerequisites / Notice | Participants should have a background in natural sciences, and have attended introductory lectures in atmospheric sciences or meteorology. |