Module ID: 004
Synopsis: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) relies on the international climate modeling community to provide insight into the range of possible future changes in climate, with shifts in the global distribution of rainfall being of particular concern for society. With this module, students can quantitatively analyze the output of 30 state-of-the-art, global climate model simulations to quantify predictions of future changes in precipitation. Students can assess the significance of predicted trends relative to natural climate variability, determine the extent to which the predictions are model-dependent, and explore the overall sensitivity of the predictions to global CO2 emissions scenario. Possible implementations of this module include lab/recitation exercise, homework assignment or semester project.
Curricular tie-ins: hydroclimate; IPCC; climate change; numerical models; uncertainty
Appropriate for: Advanced undergraduates (4000-level course) and graduate students. *
Plausible courses: ATOC 4500; ATOC 4730; ATOC 5730; ATOC 6100 *
Software and skills required: MATLAB software required. A minimum of prior experience is necessary, as code is provided that can be executed and slightly modified. *
Pedagogical suggestion: module_004_ped.docx
Data set: module_004_data.mat **
Source: Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 ( Earth System Grid Federation | LLNL.gov )
Code: module_004_code.m ***
Representative journal article: Projected changes in mean rainfall and temperature over East Africa based on CMIP5 models (Ongoma et al. 2017, International Journal of Climatology)
Faculty contributor: Prof. Kris Karnauskas
* This module can be adapted to lower-division undergraduate courses (e.g., ATOC 1060 recitation activity or ATOC 3600) if the instructor simply computes area-averaged time series from the full gridded data file provided, and provides those columnar data in Excel format to the students.
** For security reasons, this .mat file will save to your computer as a .pdf file. After downloading, simply change the extension from .pdf to .mat and it will be readable by MATLAB.
*** For security reasons, this .m file will save to your computer as a .pdf file. After downloading, simply change the extension from .pdf to .m and it will be readable by MATLAB.