Course Topics

The course is built around six major modules. Each module consists of 2-3 topics and each topic typically consists of Introduction, Readings, Fundamental Concepts, Self-check Quiz, Activities & Assignments, Summary, and Self-review Questions.

Introduction to the Course

Module I: Introduction to Climate Change and Its Impacts on Forest Ecosystems 

Topic 1.1: Introduction to Global Climate Change

Topic 1.2. Introduction to Impacts of Climate Change on Forest Ecosystems in Tropics/Subtropics

Module II. Climate Modelling in Forest Adaptation to Climate Change 

Topic 2.1. Introduction to Climate Models

Topic 2.2. Introduction to Ecological Models

Module III. Scale-free Climate Models and Their Applications

Topic 3.1. Introduction to ClimateNA and ClimateAP (or ClimateNA/AP)

Topic 3.2. The Use of ClimateNA/AP to Generate Point and Spatial Climate Data

Module IV. Introduction to Ecological Models

Topic 4.1.  Principles and Methods of Niche-based Models

Topic 4.2.  Introduction to FORECAST Climate

Topic 4.3. Introduction to Climatic Response Functions

Module V. Building Ecological Models in R

Topic 5.1. Ecological and Climate Data Processing

Topic 5.2. Model Building and Model Predictions

Topic 5.3. Case Studies with Forest Ecosystems

Review and Wrap-up