Subject Summary

Quantitative Environmental Sciences (QES) is designed to integrate the physics, maths, biology, and chemistry behind environmental issues and models of environmental systems. Students explore how Natural Sciences are instrumental in solving the real-world problems that we are currently facing and will continue to face in the coming decades. The course is broadly structured around the presentation of key environmental systems, and the fundamental mathematical principles underlying designing models to study environmental challenges. Students will also gain experience in breaking down scientific challenges to policy makers through writing a policy paper. The practical component will teach students how to build simple numerical climate models in Python and to visualise environmental datasets.

The course begins with an overview of how the surface of the planet functions, with introductory lectures on the global carbon cycle, hydrological cycle, the source of energy on the planet and how oceans move. Michaelmas term focuses on groundwater flow, surface water, ice dynamics, and atmospheric chemistry, with consideration of challenges in groundwater contamination, flooding, ice melt and sea level rise, and air pollution. The focus is on the applied mathematics and introductory fluid dynamics behind these systems. There are also several lectures in Michaelmas dedicated to presentation of environmental datasets and the role of science in government.

Student choose a policy paper topic and write a modified policy paper that is due early in Lent term. In the Lent term lecture course we consider the global environment, how the oceans, and atmosphere serves to redistribute heat, energy and carbon around the planet. This includes modules on the physics of atmosphere and ocean transport as well as the chemistry of carbon in the ocean, case studies on the study of the ocean system in polar regions, and an understanding of the land carbon system. The goal of the Lent term is to explore the role of the oceans, land, and atmosphere in the global climate system. In the Lent term practicals students will be build a simple climate model, which contributes to a lab report due in the Easter vacation. In the final term, students will learn about how the energy transition will impact environmental systems, and where solutions to the future climate crisis may lie.

QES is a multidisciplinary course, taught by lecturers from Maths (DAMTP), Chemistry, Earth Sciences, and the British Antarctic Survey.

Programme Specification

This course is taught jointly by DAMPT, the Departments of Earth Sciences and Chemistry, with guest lectures from the British Antarctic Survey. It is administered through DAMTP.

Aims

This course aims to:

1. teach a cross disciplinary course on the use of Mathematics in environmental studies and in solving environmental challenges.
2. engender an understanding of the role that natural scientists (in particular) will play in designing solutions to environmental challenges (air pollution, groundwater pollution, climate change) that students will face over the course of their lifetimes;
3. learn to apply the maths that students have been taught to environmental problems, and how to write simple code to understand what data is telling us, and to build a simple climate model;
4. build an understanding of how Earth’s surface environment functions, where energy comes from, where there are environmental challenges and what the nature of the solutions to these environmental challenges might be;
5. understand how policy makers can benefit from the outcomes of environmental models and where and how science can inform policy.

Learning Outcomes

At the end of the course students should:

1. understand how knowledge of physics, chemistry and biology informs models of environmental systems;
2. be able to write code in python to build simple environmentally relevant models (e.g. a box model for carbon, or a flow model for groundwater);
3. be able to work with large environmental datasets (e.g. data incorporation, visualisation, regression);
4. understand how to disseminate scientific concepts to a general audience (e.g. policy makers or the public).

Teaching and Learning Methods

These include lectures, supervisions and online practicals. The practicals are done in the students own time, but with drop-in sessions with demonstrators available during the week.

Assessment

Assessment for this course is through:

• one unseen written examination (for aims 1-5 and learning outcomes 1 and 4);
• one unseen computational exam (for aims 1, 3 and learning outcomes 1-3);
• one lab report base on the practical component (for aims 1-4 and learning outcomes 1-3);
• one policy paper (for aims 2,3 and 5, and learning outcome 4).

Courses of Preparation

Essential: A level Mathematics.

Recommended: A Level Further Mathematics.

Additional Information

Further information is available on the Course Websites pages.