---
# System prepended metadata

title: Physical Climate Modelling Course

---

# Physical Climate Modelling Course

**Learning goals:**

Understand the different types of climate models and the fundamental physics of these models and be able to explain the advantages and disadvantages of different models and the types of research questions for which they are most useful. 

Describe the physics and thermodynamics of radiative balance and clouds, including convective-radiative equilibrium, and understand how we model this in 1 and 2 dimensions.

Describe the physics of natural variability in climate and use this to explain the consequences of natural variability for observing and attributing climatic changes to anthropogenic actions.

Understand how to use and add to Jupyter (python) notebooks for different research outputs, including analysing existing output/datasets, building simple models, exploring observations and testing hypotheses. 

Understand how general circulation models work in order to be able to explain the advantages and limitations of such climate models and critically evaluate model projections of future climates. 

Describe the different ways climate models can be used, including for future projections, paleoclimate modelling, geoengineering modelling.


**Course Description:**

This course will closely follow the Climate Laboratory textbook by Prof. Brian Rose: https://brian-rose.github.io/ClimateLaboratoryBook/home

We will also make use of Dennis Hartmann's Physical Climatology textbook: https://www-sciencedirect-com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/book/9780123285317/global-physical-climatology


Any questions, or to register, contact Rachel White (rwhite@eoas.ubc.ca) or Phil Austin (paustin@eoas.ubc.ca).

Evaluation will be through jupyter notebook assignments throughout the term and an individual/group project towards the end of the course. 
