Global climate change is the most complex and one of the most serious environmental issues of our time. Climate change is already causing environmental, social and economic disruption at the global scale and has the potential to so at catastrophic proportions in the middle and long term. Climate change is a major driver of global environmental change (GEC), which impacts ecosystems and human communities, and intertwines environmental and social problems through a series of complex feedback mechanisms.

Despite the tremendous scientific progress achieved over the last half a century, our current understanding and representation of the earth system is not yet fully adequate to accurately predict climate change and its global and regional effects under various greenhouse gas (GHG) and other climate change agents emission scenarios. In spite of the imperfection of this knowledge, the precautionary principle requires undertaking global mitigation and adaptation actions. Scientists and engineers, particularly those involved in supporting decision making, must thus understand and communicate the uncertainty associated to measurements, predictions and the outcome of mitigation and adaptation projects.

Although climate change has been the core theme of many seminars, workshops and conferences in recent years in Colombia, there is a lack and an urgent need in Colombia for university-level formation courses on the topic. This 64-h course responds to this need by providing in-depth formation on science and engineering aspects of climate change. The Science Module presents the fundamentals of climate change, along with a detailed description of climate modeling and simulation. The observed and predicted climate change in Colombia is also discussed. The Engineering Module discusses the consequences of climate change in Latin America, introduces methodologies for impact and vulnerability analysis, and presents the design and implementation of mitigation and adaptation actions through practical examples. This module also presents the measurement and estimation of GHG concentrations and fluxes, and discusses the United Nations’ CDM (Clean Development Mechanism) and REDDS (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries) mechanisms and their application in Colombia.

The course attendants will have the opportunity to discuss these topics with highly qualified lecturers and put their knowledge into practice through workshops and hands-on sessions.

        

Guest Speakers

---

Stefan HAGEMANN, Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI-M), Hamburg, Germany

---

Stefan Hagemann studied Physics at the University of Hamburg, Germany and obtained his PhD degree from the same university in 1998. He has an experience of more than 15 years working on hydrology within the framework of global and regional climate modeling. He is familiar with modeling of hydrology and land surface processes and the validation of the hydrological cycle of Global Climate Models (GCMs), Regional Climate Models (RCMs) and re-analysis data. This encompasses the applicability of different physical parameterizations for land surface processes and the simulation of the hydrological cycle on spatial grid scales ranging from 10 km up to a few hundred kilometers. He was the leader of the Atmosphere Surface Exchanges research group at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI-M) in Hamburg, Germany for one and a half years until it was dissolved due to re-structuring in December 2005. Since May 2006, he is leading the Terrestrial Hydrology research group at MPI-M. He has actively contributed to several EU projects and is currently the leader of the EU project WATCH - WATer and global CHange.

Walter VERGARA, The World Bank, Washington, D.C., USA

---

Mr. Walter Vergara is Lead Engineer in the Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development Department (LCSES) of the World Bank’s Latin America and Caribbean Regional Office. Mr. Vergara works in several aspects of the climate change program and has participated in development of the carbon finance portfolio as well as in initiatives on adaptation to climate change, transport and climate change, air quality, application of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) to wastewater, solid waste management and renewable energy. Mr. Vergara currently manages an extensive portfolio of climate change initiatives in the region. He is a Chemical Engineer and graduate of Cornell University in Ithaca (NY) and Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogota.

Jose Daniel PABON, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá

---

Dr. José Daniel Pabón is a meteorological engineer and a Ph. D. from the Russian State Hydrometeorological University (RSHU) at Odessa. He was the director of the Meteorology department at the Colombian Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies (IDEAM) for 7 years and ran studies on the social and economical impact of El Niño and La Niña phenomena for the same institute.

Dr. Pabón has been a Professor at the Department of Geography of Universidad Nacional de Colombia since 1994 and is currently the leader of the Weather, climate and society research group. His research is focused on the study of the atmosphere, the relation between weather and climate, climate variability, climate change and their social and economical impacts.

Dr Pabón has been participated in different ways in the frame of IPCC: as official delegate of Colombia in several meetings of WG-I and WG-II, as contributing author in the AR3 (Chapter Latin America  of the WG-II Report) and reviewer in the AR4 (the WG-II Report), and as member of  Task Group on Climate Impact Assessment (TGCIA) in the 1998-2003 period.

Dr. Pabon has also participated in several projects, programs and in organizational-administrative affairs of international organizations as the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO, Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC), Inter-American Institute for Global Change Studies (IAI). Also in regional programs like ERFEN.

Andrew JARVIS, International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), Cali

---

Dr. Andy Jarvis is the Leader of the Decision and Policy Analysis Program in the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and is a Theme Leader on the Global Challenge Program for Climate Change and Food Security.

Dr. Jarvis has 10 years experience of cutting edge scientific research in developing countries to support the goals of alleviating poverty and protecting essential ecosystem services. His research has focused on the use of spatial analysis and environmental modeling to address issues such as agricultural biodiversity conservation, adaptation to climate change, and maintenance of ecosystem services.

During the past ten years, Dr. Jarvis has published over 50 international scientific papers (over 20 peer-reviewed) and book chapters. He is also a co-author of 3 major global datasets on climate (WorldClim – http://www.worlclim.org), topography (SRTM – http://csi.srtm.cgiar.org) and water resources (Hydrosheds - http://hydrosheds.cr.usgs.gov/), and of DIVA-GIS (www.diva-gis.org), a widely used by the conservation community software. He is currently developing detailed rainfall data derived from the TRMM satellite and vegetation data from MODIS.

Dr. Jarvis has also worked as a Consultant to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on developing climate change strategies to conserve agricultural biodiversity, and has been a consultant on a variety of projects for the European Union, and the Global Environment Facility amongst others. In 2003 Dr. Jarvis won the Crop Science Society of America (CSSA) C-8 Genetic Resources Award for best research paper stemming from his work on conservation prioritization research for wild peanuts in Latin America, and in 2009 received the prestigious Ebbe Nielsen Award for innovative research on bioinformatics and biosystematics applied to climate change impacts on biodiversity.

Dr. Jarvis holds a First Class B.Sc. Honours (1999) and a Ph.D. (2005), both from the Department of Geography of the King's College, London.

Germán POVEDA, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Escuela de Geociencias y Medio Ambiente, Medellín

---

 

 

Fabio GONZALEZ, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá

---

Mr. González has been affiliated with the Department of Physics of Universidad Nacional de Colombia at Bogota since 1976, where he is currently an Associate Professor.

Mr. González has pioneered the study of GHG in Colombia, including inventories, mitigation and emission reduction strategies. He is also an expert on renewable energies and on the application of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for natural resource mapping, particularly for solar and wind power potential.

During the last years, Mr. González has worked on the analysis, auditing and the implementation of actions for improving energy use efficiency in industry, commercial and residential sectors and by specific devices.

Mr. González holds Physics (1976) and M.Sc. in Physics (1984) degrees from Universidad Nacional de Colombia, and has attended international specialization courses on renewable energies, GHG and GIS.

 

William G. LAGUADO, Centro de Investigación en Ecosistemas y Cambio Global, Carbono & Bosques – C&B, Bogotá

---

Mr. Laguado is a Forest Engineer and the Executive Director of the Forests and Global Change Research Center (Centro de Investigación en Bosques y Cambio Global – Carbono y Bosques) based in Medellín. He is currently the coordinator of pilot projects for the Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies (IDEAM) aiming to reduce emissions due to deforestation and degradation of forests. In 2009, Mr. Laguado coordinated a project to Structure the Policy on Amazonian Indigenous Communities linked with Climate Change and International Forest Projects. Between 2005 and 2009, Mr. Laguado has worked on the preparation of Project Design Documents (PDD) under the Clean Development Mechanism in various regions of Colombia.

 

Andrés SIERRA, Centro de Investigación en Ecosistemas y Cambio Global –Carbono & Bosques (C&B), Medellín

---

Mr. Sierra is a Forest Engineer and the Clean Development Mechanism Project Coordinator at the Forests and Global Change Research Center (Centro de Investigación en Bosques y Cambio Global – Carbono y Bosques) in Medellín. Mr. Sierra works as a forest information analyst and on the design and implementation of forest cover inventory and monitoring activities for various projects. He currently applies models to estimate vegetation carbon stocks and supports the preparation of the Project Design Documents (PDD) for two afforestation and reforestation projects at the Colombian High Orinoquia and at the Colombian Eje Cafetero.

Course coordinators

---

Rodrigo JIMÉNEZ, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá

---

Dr. Jiménez is a Chemical Engineer (Universidad del Valle, 1997) with a Ph.D. in Atmospheric Sciences from École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). After obtaining his Ph.D. in 2004, Dr. Jiménez conducted atmospheric research in Prof. Wofsy’s Group at Harvard University (Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, 2004-2007; Research Associate, 2007-2009), and has recently joined the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering of Universidad Nacional de Colombia at Bogota.

Dr. Jiménez has over 13 years of experience in the design, development and application of field and laboratory experiments, and atmospheric instrumentation for the study of air pollution, atmospheric chemistry, and greenhouse gas (GHG) transport, sources and sinks.

Dr. Jiménez is a co-developer of QCLS, a fast response, high precision laser spectrometer for airborne GHG measurements built for NCAR and NASA. Dr. Jiménez has also co-developed other laser and DOAS instruments, has carried out measurements in over 13 ground- and airborne-based atmospheric field experiments (4 of them devised and managed by him), and also managed a project aimed at improving air quality in the Sogamoso Valley (Colombia), which included the construction and operation of a 4-station monitoring network. Dr. Jiménez has published about 30 research papers.

Astrid BAQUERO, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, Grupo de Simulación del Sistema Climático Terrestre.

---

Dr. Astrid Baquero is a physicist from Universidad Nacional de Colombia at Bogotá, with a Ph.D. in Meteorology from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology at Hamburg, where she also held a postdoctoral position.

Dr. Baquero’s main interest is the applicability of different types of complex physical climate models to the tropics, especially over the Colombian territory. Currently, Dr. Baquero is the leader of the Earth Climate Simulation Group at Universidad Nacional de Colombia since 2006.

Néstor Y. ROJAS, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá

---

Dr. Rojas is a Chemical Engineer (Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 1996) with a Ph.D. in Diesel Engines Emissions from the University of Leeds, United Kingdom. He held an Assistant Professor position at Universidad de Los Andes between 2002 and 2006 and he is currently an Associate Professor at the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering of Universidad Nacional de Colombia at Bogota. Dr. Rojas’ research is focused on particulate matter air pollution in Bogota, including its effects on health, its chemical characterization and source contribution. Dr. Rojas is the editor/co-author of the book “Material particulado atmosférico y salud” (Ediciones Uniandes, 2005).

 

Sponsors

---

 

http://www.ing.unal.edu.co/catedra/