On May 18, 2021, Luo Yong, professor of the Research Center for Earth System Science and the State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Sciences of Tsinghua University, gave a lecture on “Introduction to Climate Change Science” to our postgraduate students.

With the theme of "Impacts, Vulnerability and Resilience of Climate Change", Professor Luo introduced the cutting-edge achievements of climate phenomenon research from the perspective of relevant concepts of climate change impacts. The course mainly includes four aspects: 1. Assessment methods of climate change impacts; 2. Impacts and vulnerability of climate change (global); 3. Impacts and vulnerability of climate change (China); 4. Capacity building. Professor Luo said that climate change refers to the change of the five circles of the climate system, and the change of any one of the five circles should be regarded as climate change. The impacts of climate change mainly refer to extreme weather and climate events as well as the effects of climate change on natural and human systems. Then he introduced the "eight-step method" of vulnerability assessment, including three stages: identification of the study area, familiarity with the study area and substantive assessment. He also lectured on ways to improve the resilience of the climate system. Professor Luo also extended the past climate events to the forecast of future climate change, which made the students feel the impact of climate change on their lives more deeply. Therefore, this class is conducive to cultivating students' independent thinking ability, expression ability and teamwork ability, forming an international perspective, a global concept, and a multidisciplinary thinking mode, and helping students understand the latest progress and hot issues of climate change vulnerability assessment.

At the end of the course, Professor Luo introduced some controversial issues in the field of climate change research and laid out several thinking questions to encourage students to actively think and question and strive to explore the vast scientific world. After class, the students gathered around the teacher and asked questions. The whole teaching atmosphere was active and the interaction between teachers and students was frequent. Students expressed that this course was rich in content and clear in order, and the teacher's narration was very helpful for students to understand the knowledge and benefited them a lot.

Luo Yong, professor and deputy director of the Department of Earth System Science at Tsinghua University. His research focuses on climate change, water, and renewable energy. He is the vice-chairman of the World Climate Research Program/Chinese National Committee on Climate and Cryosphere, vice-chairman of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics/Chinese National Committee of the International Association for Cryospheric Science, vice-chairman of the Chinese Society for Cryospheric Science, and deputy editor of Advances in Climate Change Research. He served as the Asia Lead Author Coordination (CLA) for Chapter 10 of the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group II (WGII). He is also the director of the key special project of the National Key Research and Development Program "Global Change and Response". He was the chairman of the Committee on Climate Change and Low-carbon Development of the Chinese Meteorological Society, Assistant to the UN Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Global Sustainability, and the principal author of the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC (AR4) and China's National Assessment Report on Climate Change.