M.Sc. Integrated Climate System Sciences
Study in Hamburg and enjoy access to Germany's hub for Climate research
What is ICSS?
The M.Sc. program in Integrated Climate System Sciences (ICSS) is a study program that teaches across all subjects involved in climate research in order to provide a holistic picture of the climate system. With this interdisciplinary approach you will understand the processes of climate variability and climate change, as well as how a society's response can affect them.
Why ICSS?
Because of the pressure to adapt to climate change, there is an increasing demand for interdisciplinary scientists and climate experts. Our interdisciplinary claim challenges the traditional subject-related teaching. The M.Sc. ICSS has developed special interdisciplinary courses and enables study projects, theses and mentoring in a cross-curricular and research-oriented context.
Why SICSS?
This approach and the imparting of interdisciplinary competences are some of SICSS' M.Sc. ICSS' unique characteristics. The location in Hamburg with access to Germany's hub for Climate research offers ideal study conditions. Furthermore, you can also enjoy the opportunity to spend time abroad in one of our partner programs in your third semester.
Have a look at what our students say about studying Climate Science at a German university and the main three study tracks of M.Sc. ICSS and its interdisciplinary courses below!
What is the M.Sc. ICSS?
The Master of Science program in Integrated Climate System Sciences offers four study foci:
- Physics of the Climate System
- Biogeochemistry of the Climate System
- Climate-Related Economics
- Climate-Related Social Sciences
You will study all four foci during your first semester. After the second semester, you can give your personal curriculum either an in-depth focus on one of the four foci, or an interdisciplinary approach whereby you combine various courses from the four foci.
Additionally, the ICSS program also offers many technical skills elective courses, which provide you with working knowledge in tools used for scientific programming and data analysis or software development. Some of these courses are listed below.
Scientific Programming in Python
In this course, you will learn the programming language Python from scratch and get in touch with common scientific libraries for analyzing and plottig geoscientific data. This course is designed for novice programmers and will focus on the basics of programming.
MATLAB in Earth System Science
This course offers an introduction to Matlab as a high-level programming language, as well as an introduction to data streaming, analysis and visualization with examples from Earth System Sciences. Here you will learn to handle the basic operators as well as data and control structures of Matlab, and apply those to typical simple problems of data manipulation and visualization in Earth System Sciences.
Generalized Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS)
In this course you will learn the mathematical programming of optimization problems. Contents include: Overview (capabilities, applicability, requirements, help); basic modeling (representation of mathematical problems, sets, data, variables, equations, conditions, model types, model solving, error detection and correction); output (interpretation, modification, option commands, report writing, export).
Agent-based Modeling
This course will familiarize you with agent-based modeling to explore macro phenomena emerging from micro behavior of agents. You will learn how to describe, communicate, design, calibrate, and validate agent-based models and work with examples from applications in the social sciences, e.g. economics, sociology, political science, human and integrative geography.
Scientific Visualization Course
Upon completion of this course you will know the latest techniques used in scientific visualization, hands-on ways to use visualization in research work, publications and presentations, as well as where to locate further visualization resources.