Scuola di Studi Superiori "Ferdinando Rossi" dell'Università degli Studi di Torino - SSST

The course aims at providing an interdisciplinary perspective of anthropogenic climate change. The main objective is to deal with global warming and climate change highlighting their complexity and interdisciplinarity, focusing on not only the environmental aspects but also the political, social, economic, geographical and other impacts.
The course aims at providing the basic knowledge on how the Earth's climate system works and what its specificities are, on the main mechanisms responsible for climate variability and change, on the difference between current and past changes. To this end, a module of the course will be entirely dedicated to the methods which the scientific community use to make climate reconstructions based on proxy data and to study the current climate evolution through direct observations. The course will also provide information on the possibility to make projections of the future climate conditions using numerical models of the climate system. An overview of the climate scenarios produced by the state-of-the-art climate models will be provided including an analysis of the model uncertainties. The changes in the climate system components will be then analysed in terms of their impacts on the environment, ecosystems, and the society as a whole, also adopting a risk perspective. The mitigation and adaptation strategies (including changes in our behaviour) to contrast global warming and climate changes will be analysed. Using a geographical perspective will allow highlighting some critical aspects of these strategies and policies: the phenomena of rescaling, carbon leakage, inventory definition and the dynamics of carbon colonialism.

online lectures

Written exam

Module 1 - The history of global warming studies from past climate reconstructions to the current instrumental measurements. 

Teaching staff: (3 h) Mercalli,Palazzi, Bagliani

The history of global warming research: the pioneers (Fourier, Tyndall, Arrhenius, Callendar), the climate research in the post-World War II (Plass, Keeling, Manabe), the first policy reports (NAS-Charney 1979), the IPCC foundation in 1988, global research at the time of Internet, Nasa, Copernicus. Instrumental measurement methods, historical climate data series, reconstruction of the past climate through proxy data.

Module 2 - Understanding how the climate system works

Teaching staff: (2 h) Palazzi, (2 h) Bagliani e Mercalli

Description of the climate system as a complex dynamical system with different interacting components (atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, biosphere, lithosphere). Description of the mechanisms at work in the climate system, of the role of solar and terrestrial radiations and of the greenhouse effect, of the atmospheric and oceanic circulations, and of the main biogeochemical cycles. We will introduce the concept of energy balance, describing the factors able to modify it, including both natural and anthropogenic forcings. Internal natural variability of the climate system will be dealt with as well focusing on feedbacks and teleconnections.

Module 3 - Climate models as tools to understand past and current changes and predict the future climate evolution

Teaching staff: (2 h) Bagliani, Palazzi, Mercalli

The knowledge and understanding of the current and past climate variations is useful to validate climate models and produce reliable climate projections. Climate models are fundamental tools not only to produce future projections under different scenarios but also to better understand the mechanisms at work in the climate system and the relative role of the different drivers or forcings, when the models are used as real “laboratories”.
We will introduce the different types of climate models which are currently employed, from the simplest ones, like the Energy Balance Models, to the most complex ones, the fully coupled Earth System Models, mostly used to produce future climate projections.

Module 4 - Future scenarios and impacts

Teaching staff: (2 h) Palazzi, (1 h) Mercalli, (1 h) Bagliani

This module will be focused on illustrating the main climate projections produced by the state-of-the-art global and regional climate models and summarized in the latest IPCC reports (2013, 2018, 2019). Then, impacts of global warming and climate change on human systems will be discussed, focusing on economic, social and health impacts, as well as migration and in the field of human rights.

Module 5 - Mitigation and adaptation policies

Teaching staff: (3 h) Bagliani, Palazzi, Mercalli

Analysis of past, present and future mitigation and adaptation actions and policies.
Brief history of mitigation policies (from pre-Kyoto, to Kyoto to Paris).
Use of geographical interpretations to illustrate some critical aspects of policies to combat climate change. The most important are: rescaling of policies; carbon leakage; emission inventories and their centratures; the substitutability between emissions and offsets that generates new dynamics of carbon colonialism.

Module 6 - Technological innovation and lifestyle changes.

Teaching staff: (2 h) Mercalli, Palazzi, Bagliani

Possibility of scientific research and technological innovation to enhance energy efficiency and renewable energies. Techno-optimism vs. degrowth. Role of individual behavior, environmental ethics, Pope Francis' encyclical Laudato Si ’, the philosophy of sufficiency vs. the economy of infinite growth. Aurelio Peccei and The Report on Limits to Growth (1972) revisited.