The Science of Climate Hazard

Lecture

Wed., Jan. 17

Today

  • Logistics
  • Clarifying questions
  • Discussion questions
  • Wrapup

Logistics

  1. Syllabus / lab 0: sorry for the double assignment (but free points to you)
  2. Lab 1: about half of you have turned in; looks like the Python problems less severe than anticipated 😄; let’s troubleshoot after class (email if that doesn’t work for you)
  3. Signup: see Google Sheet to sign up as note taker (421 + 521) and discussion leader (521 only)
  4. Next week: I’ll post readings by Friday.
  5. Good question: readings on the syllabus are suggestions – go with what’s on the “Readings” page of the website.

Extra credit opportunity

I make lots of mistakes! If you find one:

  1. Create an Issue on the course repository (1 “EC point”)
  2. Find the line of code that needs to be fixed and use the permalink function (1 point)
  3. Submit a pull request that fixes it (1 point).

Anything as small as a typo counts, bonus points for bigger mistakes. At the end of the semester, we’ll scale the EC points so that you get up to 5 “class” points.

Clarifying questions

We read Seneviratne et al. (2021) and Lall et al. (2018). What terms or concepts were confusing to you?

Tip

Please use Canvas discussions (e.g., “Week 2 Reading Discussion”) to ask questions about readings. If you give me heads up, I have a better chance of giving you a satisfactory answer 😉

Discussion questions

Two minutes each

Prepare a two minute summary of key points from the “one additional subsection” that you read from Seneviratne et al. (2021).

Discussion questions

Not a concern

Think about one impact of climate change you were surprised to learn about and one hazard that is less of a concern than you thought it was.

Discussion questions

Challenges

What are some of the challenges of using climate models to predict future climate? What are some of the challenges of using climate models to predict future impacts of climate change?

Discussion questions

Observations and models

What are some of the challenges of using observations to understand future climate? What are some of the challenges of using models to understand future impacts of climate change?

Discussion questions

Some additional questions

  • Your questions?
  • How did the focus areas of Seneviratne et al. (2021) and Lall et al. (2018) differ?
  • What is the difference between climate risks and climate change risks?
  • How should we plan for climate change impacts that are highly uncertain?

References

Lall, U., Johnson, T., Colohan, P., Aghakouchak, A., Arumugam, S., Brown, C., et al. (2018). Chapter 3: Water. In D. R. Reidmiller, D. R. Easterling, K. E. Kunkel, K. L. M. Lewis, T. K. Maycock, & B. C. Stewart, Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States: The Fourth National Climate Assessment, Volume II. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Global Change Research Program. https://doi.org/10.7930/NCA4.2018.CH3
Seneviratne, S. I., Zhang, X., Adnan, M., Badi, W., Dereczynski, C., Di Luca, A., et al. (2021). Weather and climate extreme events in a changing climate. In V. Masson-Delmotte, P. Zhai, A. Pirani, S. L. Connors, C. Péan, S. Berger, et al. (Eds.), Climate change 2021: The physical science basis. Contribution of working group I to the sixth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Book section, Cambridge, UK; New York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009157896.013