ATMS
514/ESS 535
Ice and Climate
Formerly Ice and Climate Modeling
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~bitz/514.html
This course will cover the principles of cryosphere and climate
interactions and polar climate dynamics. Topics include glaciers,
ice sheets, snow, and sea
ice in the modern climate, and their role in climate change, sea level
rise,
the Pleistocene ice ages, and snowball Earth. Relatively simple
modeling exercises will be employed to learn about climate dynamics and
ice sheet and sea
ice sensitivity to climate change.
The course format will be a blend of lecturing, journal
article discussion, and student special topic reports. Approximately
five homework assignments will be given, some using simple models
(provided by the
instructor). Students will be lead discussions of journal
articles in pairs. Each student will also choose an
additional topic and lead a class presentation on that topic. The
presentation may be based on a critique of a paper or group of papers,
analysis of data, and/or a simple modeling project. The project should
be summarized in an approximately 5-page written report. There will be
no exams. The grade breakdown is approximately:
Homework assignments 40%
Journal article discussion (leading and participating) 20%
Project (written and presentation) 40%
Prerequisite: ATMS 501, 511 or ESS 532 would be helpful, but are not
required. No
previous modeling experience is needed.
Reading will be from a variety of journal articles and books that I
will
place on hold at the library.
Password protected
class readings
Energy
balance model files for download
2009 Schedule
Week
|
Lectures
|
Lab/Exercises
|
Reading
|
1
3/31
4/2
|
Tu: Introduction
Th: Meet without Cecilia to organize class exercise
|
Exercise
for Thurs
Just
Core 607
Original
data
|
Required: Enderton and Marshall
for 4/7
Recommended: Stone
1978 for 4/7, Global
Outlook
for Ice and Snow Highlights (Ch 1) for general background
|
2
4/7
4/9
|
Tu: Meridional heat transport and Discuss Enderton and Marshall
Th: Energy balance modeling
|
HW 1 Energy
balance model exercise,
Model
information
|
Required: Cecilia's
lecture notes for 4/9
Roe
2009 pages 1-10 for 4/14
Haywood
and Valdez (2004) for 4/16
Recommended:
|
3
4/14
4/16
|
Tu: Feedback and brief history of ice in the Pliocene
Th: discussion of Haywood and Valdez (2004) about Pliocene
Evening lecture by David Archer , author of "The Long Thaw"
|
|
Required: Bitz
and Roe (2004) for 4/21
Recommended: Thorndike
(1992) for 4/21
|
4
4/21
4/23
|
Tu: Sea ice feedbacks and thermodynamics basics
Th: Sea ice albedo feedback discussion of Winton paper
Optional Thurs evening lecture by Jessica Lundquist on PacNW Mountain
Snow in Kane Hall, 120, 7pm
Optional Fri talk and video presentation by Norbert Untersteiner,
Father of sea ice thermodynamics, Applied Physics Lab, 6th floor 1pm
|
sea ice model exercise
|
Required: Winton
(2008) for 4/23
Recommended: Eisenman
and Wettlaufer (2009), especially relevant to homework
Required: Serreze
et al 2007 for 4/28, Lindsay
and Zhang (2005) for 4/30
|
5
4/28
4/30
|
Tu: More on sea ice
Th: Discuss Lindsay and Zhang 2005
|
|
Required: Joughin
et al 2008 and Nick
et al 2009 for 5/5
Recommended: |
6
5/5
5/7
|
Tu: Ice Sheets: Guest lecture Ian Joughin
Th: Glacier mass balance basics
|
ice sheet model exercise
Final Project
Proposals Paragraphs due 5/14
|
Required: Marshall
2006 for 5/7
Recommended: Paterson
1994 chapters 3 (for reference mainly)
Required: Oppenheimer
1998 for 5/12
|
7
5/12
5/14
|
Tu: Glacier dynamics and stability
Th: Discuss Alley et al 2005 |
|
Required: Alley
et al 2005 for 5/14
Kehrwald_etal2008.pdf
for 5/19
Recommended: Barnett_etal2005.pdf
for 5/19
|
8
5/19
5/21
|
Tu: Snow on land
Th: Permafrost |
|
Required:
Recommended: Clement
and Petersen 2008 for 5/26
|
9
5/26
5/28
|
Tu: Permafrost, Global ice and climate problems
Th: paleoclimate ice problems |
|
Required: Ruddiman
et al 2005 for 5/28
Recommended: Ruddiman
2006 for 5/28
|
10
6/2
6/4
|
Tu: Sudent Presentations
Th: Student Presentations
|
Turn in papers
|
Required:
Recommended: |
|
Nothing Finals week
|
|
|
Useful books
"Paleoclimatology" by
Crowley and North
"Ice
Ages: Solving the Mystery" by Imbrie and Imbrie.
"Physics of Climate" Peixoto and Oort
Pierrehumbert,
R. in preparation. Climate on Earth and other planets at a rather
basic and yet thought provoking level. It not finished yet and so it
free online for now!
Suggested additional Topics
Glacierizations: Initiation of an ice sheet
Ice daming and flooding
Rapid climate change
Contribution of CO2 to ice-age climate
Oxygen isotopes in ice and ocean
Climatic effects of snow
Bedrock depression and rebound
Role of topography in onset of ice ages; mid-Pleistocene transition
Clouds in the ice age
Albedo feedbacks
Instability of West Antarctic ice sheet
Examples of previous students' projects
Sea ice - Tony Beesely, Mark Wensman, Bill Lipscomb
Oxygen isotopes - Kurt Cuffy, Christine Massey
Cause of CO2 variations - Eric Steig
Ice age ocean circulation - Robert Pincus, Von Walden
Changes in Antarctic mass balance - Bonnie Light
Ice sheet surface energy balance - Dave Morse
Younger Dryas - Ken Young
Bedrock depression and rebound - Tony Gades, Steve Fox
Topographic changes - Jacobian, Ash Mahesh
Topography ice age initiation - Doug Clark
Mars polar cap - Rob Boime
Cloud feedbacks in climate - Tracy Furutani
Albedo Feedback - Jennifer Francis
Initiation of an ice sheet in GCM by Milankovitch - Harry
Stern
Modeling of mass balance - Andrew Bourdreaux
Climatic effects of snow - Donna Calhoun
CO2 clouds - Gary Hansen
Snowball earth - Llyd Wells
The climate of Mars - Alison Anders
The Younger Dryas - Jennifer Kay
The AO and the Odden - Ignatius Rigor
Ice and clouds - Trude Storelvmo