Subject Summary

Quantitative Climate and Environmental Science (QCES) is designed to engage students with the techniques and skills needed for research in Climate and Environmental science by integrating field and laboratory data acquisition, analysis and mathematical modelling of the climate and environmental systems.

There are three principal components to Part III QCES:

1. Core courses in Michaelmas term will provide the quantitative tools and climate and environmental context to model key environmental phenomena, and the skills to both acquire laboratory data, numerically simulate key climate and environmental processes, and acquire and analyse field data. The course is structured to present each core skill within the context of key climate and environmental processes.
    
2. Options courses which will be taken in Lent term from a pre-approved list of relevant climate and environmental courses within the Natural Sciences and Mathematics Tripos’. These courses will allow students to pursue an advanced, near-research level of understanding in aspects of the climate and environment with specialisation in mathematical methods, laboratory data, or environmental context and data acquisition and analysis.
    
3. An advanced research project, where students will address a current research question through the analysis, synthesis and presentation of an existing data set, or through the modelling or simulation of a climate or environmental phenomena, or through the synthesis and critique of a body of the existing scientific literature on a climate or environmental topic.

Programme Specification

The course is principally offered by the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP) and the Department of Earth Sciences (DES) with additional material contributed by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and member departments of the Natural Sciences Tripos.  The course is designed to train students with a suitable level of mathematical skills in climate and environmental modelling and in environmental data collection and analysis. Multidisciplinary will be achieved through diverse topics addressed in the course, combined with a research project which will prepare students for careers in many sectors of the economy dealing with climate and environmental impacts.

Aims

This course aims to:

1. expose students to a wide range of scientific areas and approaches related to climate and environmental change;
2. give students quantitative skills and practical experience in climate and environmental modelling through combined theoretical and laboratory approaches;
3. expose students to key techniques in the acquisition and analysis of field and laboratory data related to climate and environmental processes;
4. give students the experience of conducting a research project in the area of climate and environmental processes.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course, students will:

1. have experience with a broad number of areas of climate and environmental science from the core and options modules (Aims 1, 2, 3);
2. have conducted a substantial independent research project (Aim 4);
3. have developed their communication and presentation skills through the writing of lab and field reports (Aim 3), and through the write-up and presentation of their research project (Aim 4);
4. be ready to undertake quantitative research and critical analysis of climate and environmental science at the highest level.

Teaching and Learning Methods

These include lectures, supervisions and examples classes, supervised project work and report writing, and, in some cases, supervised project work outside the Department.  

Assessment

Assessment for this course is through:

• two unseen written examinations taken at the start of the Lent term on the Fundamentals of Environmental Modelling and Atmosphere, Ocean and Cryosphere (for Aims 1 and 2);
• submission of two short written reports due at the start of the Lent term on laboratory and numerical methods respectively, and longer report on environmental data acquisition and analysis also due a the start of the Lent term (for Aims 1 and 3);
• examinations on three options courses, normally taken in the Easter term (for Aims 1, 2 and 3);
• a written report and oral presentation summarising the research project (for aims 1, 2, 3 and 4).

Courses of Preparation

Essential: NST Part II with one of NST IB QES or NST IB Mathematics, or Part II Mathematics.