ECOL MAS European Graduate College in Marine Sciences

Joint Course Programme

EUROPROX European Graduate College Proxies in Earth History

NEBROC Netherlands Bremen Oceanography Cooperation

NSG Netherlands Research School for Sedimentary Geology

RCOM Research Center Ocean Margins, University of Bremen

February, 16th – 19th, 2004, Bremen

Introduction to climate modeling

André Paul, Gerrit Lohmann, Michael Schulz (EUROPROX, RCOM)

Hans Renssen (Free University of Amsterdam)

Objectives

In geoscientific research as well as in the current environmental debate, we are confronted with the results of climate models. Scientific journals, newspapers and TV show colorful figures and complex diagrams. Often we find it difficult to judge their significance.

This course will equip you with a comfortable basic knowledge in the trade of climate modeling. Our aim is to enable you to read a scientific paper in a journal like Nature or Paleoceanography and get the most out of the presented model results. In addition to a set of lectures that will introduce you to various aspects of our field, we will offer exercises in which we will use climate models that give useful results on a PC or notebook in a reasonable time.

Topics

- types of models, basic numerical issues

- modeling the physical climate system (atmosphere, ocean, ice)

- biogeochemical and ecosystem modeling

- climate forcings

- simulating the deglaciation and the last millennium

- interpretation of climate data and model output

- teleconnections

Reading

McGuffie, K. and Henderson-Sellers, A., Forty years of climate modeling, International Journal of Climatology 21, 1067-1109 (2001). DOI: 10.1002/joc.632.

(Cf. http://www.palmod.uni-bremen.de/~apau/ec_modeling/materials.html)

Computer

PLEASE BRING YOUR OWN COMPUTERS/LAPTOPS (Pentium 3 or 4, 600 MHz or higher, Windows ME or XP), IF POSSIBLE!

Course schedule

Morning (9.00-12.30) and afternoon (13.30-17.00) sessions.

Location

Research Center Ocean Margins, University of Bremen, Germany

Am Fallturm 1, 28359 Bremen, Room TAB Seminar 1 (close to Geo Dep.)

To subscribe

mail to: Torsten Bickert (ecolmas@uni-bremen.de)