The master course ‘Climate Physics’ is about understanding our climate system, the oceans and the atmosphere and their interaction. You will take a look into the dynamics of winds in the atmosphere and currents in the ocean and how they distribute heat, moisture and salt around the world. This includes not only large scale circulation systems, but goes into the details of small scale processes and turbulence. Apart from pure process understanding, the change of our climate system under global warming is of course a big topic.
You have to take some compulsory lectures about the involved physics, basic climate features and how to work with data. Apart from that. the path you take through the whole program is very flexible and you can take courses according to your interests and on which parts of the system you want to focus on. This being the ocean or the atmosphere, polar vs tropical regions, large vs small scale processes or climate feedbacks. There are also some more applied modules about sustainability and renewable energy. At the end, you work on your own research project for your master thesis for one semester.
All the lectures will take place at the GEOMAR Helmholtz center for ocean research, a world-leading marine research institute. You have the possibility to dip into real science and work as a student assistant or participate on research cruises. In general, you will learn how to work on scientific problems, analyse data using programming techniques and present scientific context.