Nicole VAN LIPZIG
Professor in geography of KU Leuven
Nicole van Lipzig heads the division of Geography and has lead Leuven Sustainable Earth, which is the expertise centre on sustainability research at KU Leuven. She is a world-leading geographer and earth system scientist聽聽聽 particularly interested in climate impacts, climate extremes, wind energy, and urban and polar climate. In the past fifteen years, Prof. Van Lipzig coordinated fundamental research projects in Europe and Antarctica, and spearheaded research on land use change and urbanisation impacts on local climate in economically-developing regions in Subsaharan Africa. In her recent work, she initiated innovative geographic research on the combined effects of the climate and the weather on the efficacy of renewable energy resources like offshore wind farms.
She has (co)authored more than 110 scientific publications, resulting in more than 5600 citations (Scopus). Over the last 15 years, she was an esteemed keynote speaker in more than 30 international conferences. Besides fundamental research, she supports comprehensive initiatives on environmental sustainability and climate change, and provided more than 60 outreach presentations for stakeholders and the general public.
Inaugural lecture
Tuesday, February 22, 2022 at 4:15 pm
Foyer du Lac, Aula Magna, Pl. Raymond Lemaire 1.
From Equator to Pole: Climate Change Processes and Impacts around the World
Abstract: Global warming due to greenhouse gas emissions from human activities is an established fact. The manifestation of this warming strongly differs around the world. Equatorial regions, on the one hand, experience already very extreme precipitation in the current climate and a further intensification is expected to have strong impacts on humans and the environment. Informal settlements in tropical Africa and people working outdoors are affected stronger by an increase in extreme heat than citizens working and living in air conditioned buildings. Polar regions, on the other hand, experience enhanced melt due to global warming, which affects global sea level impacting regions far away like Belgium. Even though Belgian economic standards are good, also our country is vulnerable to climate change as we have seen during recent heat waves, droughts and the flooding in Belgium in July 2021. In this inaugural lecture I will take you on a journey around the world and guide you through various climate change processes and impacts occurring close to home and far away . Moreover, I will discuss how knowledge on the climate system and climate change can support decision makers to plan for the futur
Three topical lectures
Friday, March 18, 2022 1:00 pm
Place des Sciences - Auditoires Sciences - Auditorium SUD 19
Climate Modelling in Polar Regions
Polar regions have received a lot of attention due to their relation to sea level change and their effect on the global albedo and amplification of the warming. Climate models are used to get insight in how these regions evolve in the future. In this lecture, I will give you an insight in how climate models work and what we can learn from these models about climate change in polar region.
Friday, april 1st, 2022 1:00 pm
Place des Sciences - Auditoires Sciences - Auditorium A.02
Sustainable Cities
Cities are known to be warmer than their surroundings and climate change will likely make cities suffer from extreme heat more frequently. In this lecture, I will talk about heat stress around the world, the urban heat island effect, and recent insights from urban climate modelling and how this can help to make cities worldwide more sustainable.
Friday, April 22, 2022 1:00 pm
Place des Sciences - Auditoires Sciences - Auditorium A.02
Renewable Energy Meteorology
Large-scale deployment of solar and wind energy is an efficient way to make society less dependent on fossil fuels and reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses. In this lecture, I will explain how atmospheric models can support this transition to renewable energy by providing information on variations in the atmospheric variables like wind, temperature and cloud due to natural variability and climate change.
Public lecture
Thursday, May 12, 2022 6:30 pm
Place Croix du Sud - Auditorium SUD18
Scientific Advances Demonstrate Need for Rapid Climate Action
Even though it has been known for several decades that the temperature of the earth is increasing due emissions of greenhouse gases, research over the past years has yielded a wealth of new knowledge on climate change. The impact of human activity on global warming is now clearer than ever and so that we can now refer to this as an established fact. A clear link between extreme weather and global warming is established, implying that extreme events like recent heatwaves and the 2021 flooding in eastern Belgium can be attributed partly to climate change. Recent research sheds light on events with a low likelihood but a big large impact (black swan events) and these events are now recognized to be part of the climate change risk assessment. In this lecture I will discuss these recent scientific advances and discuss which efforts are needed to reach specific climate targets.