Abstract:

The concern about climate change has increased over the last decades due to the important vulnerabilities identified, which need to be addressed in a short period of time. Global warming is already having significant and costly effects on our communities and our climate. It is essential to begin raising awareness among students about this important issue in order to be able to evaluate and mitigate the possible effects and investigate new technologies that facilitate the adaptation to these changes. Besides, climate change provides a natural context for teaching sciences and engineering raising students’ consciousness about their own responsibility with the global aim of improving the sustainability of the planet.

This work describes the development of a methodology to facilitate engineering students acquire the capabilities to simulate future climate scenarios. It was specifically designed for Maritime and Coastal Engineering related courses, and its main goal is to predict the effects of phenomena such as sea level rise or the increase in the frequency of storms. According to scientists, accelerated sea level rise and variations in the statistical distributions of forcings such as rain, wave and wind are the most important changes expected for the following decades. Throughout this methodology, students simulate initial scenario, which are used to compare with the other possible future scenarios. These scenarios are defined considering the state-of-the-art predictions and are simulated by the students with the aim to assess their impacts after a comparison with the zero-scenario. Finally, they are asked for proposing recommendations and mitigation alternatives.

Our experience show that this methodology provides practical knowledge and skills, while contributing to the acquisition of personal and professional attributes which will benefit the development of new science and technology in the future. Given its simplicity and low cost, it constitutes a remarkable method to introduce graduate students to climate change perspectives. Although presently applied by the authors to coastal engineering related courses, it can be applied to other engineering branches such as energy or water resources.

Keywords:

Climate change, engineering studies, simulation techniques, impacts, sustainability.