Climate Modeling Class Syllabus

ATMS/ESS 559 / OCEAN 558
       
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11:30 - 12:50, in ATG 610
Description

This course will teach the fundamentals of climate modeling. Students will learn about their opperation and how to run models and apply them to research problems.

Instructors
Cecilia Bitz
bitz@atmos.washington.edu
Phone: (206) 543-1339
Office:  ATG 502
Office hours: by appointment.		 LuAnne Thompson
luanne@ocean.washington.edu
phone: (206) 543-9965
office: OCN 317
Office hours: by appointment.		 Phil Rasch
pjr@ucar.edu
Phone: (206) 543-1339
Office:  ATG 713
Office hours: by appointment.

Class Web Siteb 

http://www.atmos.washington.edu/2008Q2/559/

Assignments and Grading

There will be approximately weekly homework assignments for the first 8 weeks to reinforce quantitative understanding of the lecture and reading materials.  There will be a final project with a presentation in the last week of class and paper due during finals week. Final grades will be comprised of homework (60%) and a final project (40%).

No text book is required because most required readings will be from journal articles. The best text books on climate modeling are Washington and Parkinson (somewhat technical) and McGuffie and Henderson-Sellers (mostly descriptive). Hartmann's  Global Physical Climatology textbook covers most of the climate science basics.  A longer book list is given on the class web page.

Class meetings will be composed of lectures and discussions.  Keep up with the reading to make the most of lectures. Lecture notes will be available after class and copies of the figures from the lectures will be available in class.  Occasionally class time will be devoted to discussion of journal articles.  For each articles that will be discussed, we require that you send in two questions or comments about the article the  to the instructors by 9AM the day of the class discussion.

Strategies for Success

The background of students is diverse in this class and the subject is enormous, so the instructors can only provide a survey. Students need to take the initiative to find help for particular topics unfamiliar or confused.  Lecture notes will be provided but students should take additional notes in class. Whenever computers are involved, things are bound to go wrong. Start your computing assignments early. Use the wiki to share problems and solutions. If you can't solve your computing woes within about an hour, ask the instructors for help (Cecilia especially).