GEO5915 – Ecological Climatology

Schedule, syllabus and examination date

Course content

The course provides an overview of the relationships between climate and ecology, with a focus on climate-related feedbacks within boreal, alpine and arctic terrestrial ecosystems. Through the program, students will understand the connections and interactions between land and atmosphere, with an emphasis on terrestrial vegetation ecology and dynamic vegetation modelling. The main focus will be on processes at northern latitudes.

Learning outcome

After taking this course, you will be able to

  • understand ecosystem processes, global biogeography and climate system, and interactions and feedbacks in the climate system involving terrestrial vegetation
  • understand the drivers and roles of fluxes of energy, water and chemical components between plants, soil and atmosphere
  • understand functional plant types, the carbon cycle, albedo, evapotranspiration (ET) and vegetation dynamics
  • perform dynamic vegetation modelling, including parameterization of processes in vegetation modules (CLM-FATES or similar)
  • perform ecological distribution modelling, including assessment of response curves by statistical modelling (in R)
  • have experience with presentations of lab work and an assigned theme
  • understand basic principles behind the sustainable use of ecosystems for climate mitigation and biodiversity conservation/management

Admission to the course

Students admitted at UiO must?apply for courses?in Studentweb. Students enrolled in other master's degree programmes can, on application, be admitted to the course if this is cleared by their own study programme.

Nordic citizens and applicants residing in the Nordic countries may?apply to take this course as a single course student.

If you are not already enrolled as a student at UiO, please see our information about?admission requirements and procedures for international applicants.

The courses GEO5915 and GEO9915?have a joint admission?with a joint capacity of 20 students?and PhD candidates will?be given priority in admission to the course. Applicants will be ranked in the following order:?

  1. PhD candidates
  2. Master's students?in Geosciences and Computational Science, programme option: CS: Geosciences.
  3. Master's students in Biosciences
  4. Exchange students on master's level

Applicants will be ranked within each category: all applicants within category 1 are ranked before applicants in category 2. If there are space limitations in the course, a