ICTP,
TRIESTE,
March 12-16, 2001
The RICAMARE courses can be divided into two large
categories. A series of three courses, led in Spain (CIHEAM-IAMZ, Zaragoza,
and UCLM,
Toledo) deals with major thematic issues on which climate change may
have strong impacts (agriculture, water resources, biodiversity). These
courses
are closely connected with themes addressed in the so-called "Activity
1" (building a research agenda). The second series, which includes two
courses,
led in ICTP (Trieste, Italy), addresses climate change issues in a
more global way, the first one dealing with physical issues, the second
one
socio-economic issues. The present report presents the first course
of the second series: "Climate Change in the Mediterranean Region - Part
1:
Physical aspects".
The course funding resources come mainly from ICTP.
START is the second donor, and the European Commission (DG Research) is
the third one. So,
the course was targeted to develop a positive synergy reaching the
objectives of these three donors.
The two Directors of the course were Pr. Filippo
GIORGI, ICTP, and Dr. Gérard BEGNI, MEDIAS-France, RICAMARE co-ordinator.
In addition, it should
be kept in mind that the RICAMARE training activity is under the overall
responsibility of Pr. J.M.MORENO, UCLM.
This is also reflected in the audience (see §
2), which was mainly Mediterranean, but also included students from other
countries, and the choice of
teachers, jointly made by ICTP and the RICAMARE co-ordinators.
The ultimate objective of the RICAMARE courses may
be defined as improving capacities in the whole Mediterranean basin to
develop research
priorities as identified in "Activity 1" (research agenda). This means
both training senior scientists from other disciplines wishing to develop
interdisciplinary research programmes, and training junior scientists
in order to give them the relevant capacities to undertake the recommended
research
programmes. So, there is an obvious synergy between the RICAMARE Activities
1 and 2.
64 students were registered. According to ICTP, START
and EC policies, most of them came from the Mediterranean region1 - both
from EC and non-EC
countries, putting emphasis on that category; a small number of other
countries were represented, such as Cuba, People's Republic of China, Indonesia,
Russia?
The statistics are as follows:
Most of the students were already specialised in
meteorological and climate sciences - but not necessarily over the Mediterranean
region. Nevertheless,
other disciplines were represented, such as mathematics or domains
related to climate change impacts (hydrology, ecosystem management), or
remote
sensing techniques.
Needless to say, the students appear very motivated and followed the courses and the practical work with the utmost care.
The programme was set up in order to draw a general
picture of physical bases of climate science, then focus on the Mediterranean,
and give an insight
on some specialised topics. The practical works were also shared between
theoretical work and information search through the Web.
Following a short welcome address by F.Giorgi and G. Begni, the detailed programme was as follows:
MORNING:
Course 1: Physical principles of climate change - H. Le Treut, CNRS, Laboratoire
de Meteorologie Dynamique, France.
AFTERNOON:
Course 2: Main climate driving forces in the Mediterranean region - M.
De Castro, Universitad Comlutense, Departamento de Geofisica, Facultad
de
Ciencias Fisicas, Spain.
MORNING:
Course 3: Representation of climate variability in General Circulation
Models - J.F. Royer, METEO-France, Centre National de Recherches
Météorologiques, France.
AFTERNOON:
Course 4: Effects on climate of greenhouse gas concentration - S. Planton,
METEO-France, Centre National de Recherches Météorologiques,
France.
MORNING:
Practical Work 1: Applying a simple climatic system model2 to compute the
global temperature increase according to different scenarios. Calculate
global temperature changes due to greenhouse gases increase through
an analytical model - S. Planton, METEO-France, Centre National de
Recherches Météorologiques, France.
AFTERNOON:
Course 5: Use of isotopes to study circulation and precipitation on the
Mediterranean - P.K. Aggarwal, International Atomic Energy Agency, Austria
MORNING:
Course 6: Effects on climate of vegetation, including deforestation and
afforestation - L. Dumenil-Gates, Lawrence Berkeley National laboratory,
USA
AFTERNOON:
Practical Work 23: Searching on the web some elements about the leading
scientific opinions on afforestation, deforestation and reforestation issues
in the context of the Kyoto protocol statements (sources and/or sinks of
carbon) - G.Begni, MEDIAS-France - France.
MORNING:
Course 6: Aerosols in the Mediterranean, their origin and climatic effects
4 - E. Özsoy, Middle East Technical University, Institute of Marine
Sciences, Turkey.
AFTERNOON:
Practical Work 3: Draft a potential research project on climate modelling
at the Mediterranean scale. Search on the web key elements about regional
models and GCM downscaling techniques at regional scales, applications
to the Mediterranean region, leading institutions and scientists, state
of the
art and knowledge gaps. MEDIAS-France - France.
A presentation of the three proposed practical works can be found in
Annex.
About practical work 3, a very encouraging fact deserves
to be noted. It was proposed, as an exercise, to draft a research project.
But several
participants - mainly from the Balkan region - decided to consider
it in a more serious way and to propose actual research work they would
like to
undertake. As noted above, this region should be taken into account
when addressing Mediterranean climate issues. So, the results of this practical
work can actually be used to enlarge the perspective of the future
regional projects that should be defined within the RICAMARE framework.
The course appeared as very successful. In the draft
action plan, 30 students were planned; 70 attended the course with the
utmost motivation. It should
be recalled that similar positive comments were made about the two
successful courses held in 2000 in Spain (CIHEAM-IAMZ and UCLM).
As shown by several teachers during the course, dealing
with climate changes in the Mediterranean and its major impacts is a very
complex issue, which
needs multidisciplinary approaches and teams or networks of researchers
having capacities to lead them. These "success stories" show that the
RICAMARE training activity, endangered by budgetary issues at the very
beginning of the project, was indeed a proper initiative to strengthen
such a
capacity all around the Mediterranean basin. Moreover, the reactions
of some students showed that the planned synergy between RICAMARE
activities 1 and 2 is not just a medium term vision; senior students
themselves elaborated some interesting regional and sub-regional research
proposals.
Information about students will be stored in the
RICAMARE and the MEDIAS directories (provided they personally agree) in
order to keep contacts
alive and favour the above-described objectives on the medium and long
run.
The main objective of this practical work is to develop
a simple analytical model of the climate system and apply it to the calculation
of expected global
temperature change due to greenhouse gases increase. The model results
will be analysed to clarify the role of feedback and system heat capacity
in
controlling the magnitude and rate of the response in temperature to
the radiative forcing of greenhouse gases.
The analytical model based upon a representation
of the energy budget of the earth system was proposed by Dutton (1995).
It describes, by means of a
differential equation, the evolution of the average surface temperature
of the earth in response to a prescribed greenhouse radiative forcing.
It includes
two independent control parameters that can be evaluated through an
adjustment on observed datasets and more complex models. The first control
parameter is a gain which measures the amplification of the direct
response in temperature change to a radiative forcing due to internal feedback
in the
atmosphere. The second parameter is a time constant accounting for
the thermal inertia of the climate system and particularly the oceans.
The differential
equation can be easily solved for prescribed simple radiative forcing
corresponding to classical scenarios of greenhouse gases increase.
We will first review the basic hypotheses of the
model and define the input parameters. We will then calculate under simple
hypotheses the equilibrium
temperature of the earth without and with inclusion of atmospheric
feedbacks. We will then derive the differential equation of Dutton's model
and
calculate the temperature change under three different scenarios. The
first one will consist in sudden greenhouse gases concentrations increase,
the
second to a linear greenhouse gases forcing and the third to a linear
forcing followed by a constant value. Numerical application will be then
proposed
and the results of the model will be analysed and compared to the results
of more complex models.
Dutton, J.A., 1995: An analytical model of atmospheric
feedback and global temperature change, J. Clim., 8, 1122-1139
ICTP (Trieste), Tuesday, February 14th, 2001
The basic idea of practical sessions 2 and 3 is to
let every student (or team of students) make personal searches on the web,
taking into account the
content of the courses. Such a personal search should be done along
general guidelines, but should also take into account the student's own
interests
and research domains. So, unlike practical work 1, these practical
works do not have a "solution"; they aim at helping everyone in getting
additive
information. It is suggested - but not mandatory - to write down the
results of the search in a concise way (one page maximum is desirable).
These
results - with the student's name - could be delivered to Gérard
BEGNI, who will review it and send them back to the students with comments
(not
"correcting") within "reasonable" delays.
What are the major statements of the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol about Afforestation, Reforestation, Deforestation (ARD)?
How can these statements be implemented? Has every country to implement it on its own territory? Are there "exchange" mechanisms?
How do these processes impact on global climate change? Is there a scientific consensus on these issues?
What is the scientific position of IPCC on these issues?
In your opinion, considering these scientific results,
what should be done at the international level to properly address these
issues? Are there specific
concerns in the Mediterranean?
These questions may be extended to agricultural practices
according to student's interests.
What is the state of art in terms of global climate change and regional downscaling techniques?
What is the state of art of these techniques applied to the Mediterranean region?
What other key issues have to be addressed concerning the driving factors of the Mediterranean climate change?
What major key questions are unsolved so far?
Which research teams and projects exist on these issues? Are there gaps to fill up?
Try to define the terms of reference of a research
project aiming at setting up a comprehensive Mediterranean regional climate
change model, and if
possible identify some proper partners.
IPCC web site (www.ipcc.ch). The LULUCF report may be used for Practical Work 2.
Key institutions web sites (such as University of
East Anglia: www.cru.uea.ac.uk andwww.jei.uea.ac.uk; some elements could
be found for instance in
the results of the ACACIA project)
IGBP web site over key issues: oceans, climate, hydrology (BAHC, JGOFS, PAGES, etc.)
European (EC) web sites such as CORDIS and the general European Union site about Mediterranean projects (EUROFLUX/MEDFLUX)
UNEP: Mediterranean Action Plan (MAP) and Blue Plan (BP) web sites
United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) web site
Research can be refined through links and search engines (Yahoo)
1 We consider here as "Mediterranean" three countries,
which "politically" do not have a Mediterranean shoreline, but are under
Mediterranean climatic
influence: Portugal, Bulgaria, and Romania. These countries were significantly
represented in the course, and analysing their conflicting climatic
influences may bring a lot of information and knowledge.
2 J.A. Dutton , 1995, Journal of Climate (p1122-1139).
3 For practical works 2 and 3, which were planned
to encourage personal research, students were invited to write a short
report to be commented and
sent back by G. Begni.
4 It should be noted that Pr. Özsoy also addressed
some purely marine issues, a very important course to understand the Mediterranean
climatic system
as a whole.