Schedule

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1. Observing the atmosphere

Monday 6/18/2012
Station model
Vertical profiles
Time series (meteograms)
The book's notes on the station model are not very imperssive, so I have typed up my own notes into this pdf

Tuesday 6/19/2012
Syllabus and logistics
Review of station model
Atmospheric composition (p.5-8)
A brief history of the atmosphere (p.9)
Ozone and the ozone hole (p.412-419)

Wednesday 6/20/2012
Carbon dioxide (p.6-7)
Pressure, density, and the structure of the atmosphere. (p.9-14)

Thursday 6/21/2012
Pressure demos -- tennis tube filled with water & can crushing
Instruments for measuring weather. The book's info on instruments is all over the place, it seems. There's a snippet on radiosondes on p.12; a little something-something on satellites on p.15-16; rain gauges on p.143; radar on p.144; barometers on p.153-154; and wind vanes, anemometers, and wind profilers on p.170-172. I have also attached a copy of the slides I presented in class today. The table we created is included in this. It can be found in the "course materials" section.
The satellite loop that failed on the classroom computer can be viewed here

Friday 6/22/2012
Quiz 1
Contouring exercise (rules for contouring found here) and exercise solution
Weather models (or numerical weather prediction models) -- notes here

2. Why is there weather? Heat, radiation, and seasons

Monday 6/25/2012
Average January and July temperatures (p.69)
Temperature and its scales. Temperature vs heat. Temperature is a measure of the kinetic energy of an object; heat is the measure of energy being transferred between objects.
Latent heat -- associated with phase change
Sensible heat -- heat we can sense/feel
Conduction -- transfer of heat by neighboring molecules bumping into-- -- each other
Convection -- transfer of heat by mass movement (also called-- -- advection)
reading (p.28-33)

Tuesday 6/26/2012
Conduction and convection demo -- convection much more efficient at-- -- mixing heat
Radiation -- transfer of energy through electromagnetic waves-- -- (light)
Properties and types of radiation, Wien's Law, Stefan-Boltzmann Law, and blackbodies.
Radiative equilibrium and the Earth... a strange tale.
Selective absorbers demo
reading (p.34-38)

Wednesday 6/27/2012
Selective absorbers revisited -- Greenhouse gases
Albedo -- amount reflected (in percent)
Why we have seasons -- the tilt of the Earth
Solar heating vs infrared cooling day-by-day and across the globe
reading (p.38-54)

Thursday 6/28/2012
Clouds and radiation
Satellite imagery (p. 250-253)

Friday 6/29/2012
Quiz 2
Cloud energy, temperature, and height exercise (graphic)
Surface temperature wrap-up, important factors, "normal" temperatures, and wind chill (p.58-79).

3. Atmospheric forces and motions

Monday 7/2/2012
Atmospheric forces -- Pressure Gradient Force (PGF) and Coriolis Force-- -- (CF)
reading (p.150-162) some of this is review of how we measure pressure which you can skip.
Coriolis Force demonstrations (spinning the bike tire on a chair and holding water jugs while rotating).
Sea and land breeze (p.182-184)

Tuesday 7/3/2012
Winds continued (p.164-169)
Wind exercise -- using pressure to determine PGF, CF, and wind
The role of friction
Upper-level support for low pressure systems, convergence and divergence aloft (p.237-241)

Wednesday 7/4/2012
Holiday -- no class

Thursday 7/5/2012
Geostrophic Balance wrap-up -- what scales do we see geostrophic-- -- flow?
Examples of non-geostrophic flow (p.182-184, p.186-191)
Air masses (p.214-224)

Friday 7/6/2012
Quiz 3
Fronts (p.225-232)
Norwegian Cyclone Model (p.233-237)

4. Humidity, condensation, and atmospheric stability

Monday 7/9/2012
The water cycle and various flavors of humidity: absolute humidity, specific humidity, mixing ratio, relative humidity. Actual vapor pressure and saturation vapor pressure.
reading (p.84-89)

Tuesday 7/10/2012
Recap of temperature, dew point temperature, actual vapor pressure, saturation vapor pressure, and relative humidity. (p.89-91)
Listing the relationships and doing a worksheet (answers).
Seasonal variations in dew point across the US.

Wednesday 7/11/2012
Wet bulb temperature, heat index, and shattering psychrometers.. oh my.(p. 92-96)
Stability -- the dry adiabatic lapse rate (DALR), moist adiabatic-- -- lapse rate (MALR), and environmental lapse rate-- -- (ELR).
Absolutely stable and absolutely unstable atmospheres. (p. 118-122)

Thursday 7/12/2012
Continuing stability -- conditionally unstable (p.122-123)
Determining stability from a sounding pptx or pdf
Cloud development and stability (p.124-125)

Friday 7/13/2012
Quiz 4
Determining parcel temperature profile on a sounding. See in class exercise and solution.

5. Clouds and precipitation

Monday 7/16/2012
Air going over a mountain example
Rain shadow (p.125-127)
Cloud types (p.97-113)

Tuesday 7/17/2012
Types of fog (radiation, advection, evaporation, and upslope) (p.96-102)
Cloud in a bottle demonstration and movie
Cloud condensation nuclei and growth of droplets (intro p.128)

Wednesday 7/18/2012
Collision and coalescence (p.128-130)
Intro to the Bergeron process (p.130-131)

Thursday 7/19/2012
Bergeron (ice-crystal) process (p.130-131)
Cloud seeding -- natural and man-made (p.132-134)
Precipitation types (p.135-143)

Friday 7/20/2012
Atmospheric optics (p.434-452)
Ice halos, sun dogs, sun pillars
Rainbows

6. Weather forecasting

Monday 7/23/2012
Revisit of optics
Mirages -- tell us about temperature profile
Observation based forecasts activity and answers

Tuesday 7/24/2012
Top Down Forecasting notes

Wednesday 7/25/2012
Second forecasting exercise (Seattle again)
Forecast types/methods (p.258-260)
Probability of Precipitation (PoP)

Thursday 7/26/2012
Forecast time types (p.260-263)
Forecast at a glance table (p.265) or here
Forecasting near warm fronts in winter: rain, freezing rain, sleet, and snow

Friday 7/27/2012
Forecast discussion reading
A forecast for six cities (p.264-270)
We did Augusta fairly completely in class as well as Chicago, but the book has several more examples. This can be quite helpful for Homework 6.

7. Storms and severe weather

Monday 7/30/2012
Thunderstorms of various types: air mass (ordinary) thunderstorms, multicell tstorms: squall lines, mesoscale convective complexes (MCCs), and supercells (p. 274-285)
Intro tornadoes

Tuesday 7/31/2012
Tornado videos
Tornadic storm development -- ingredients: CAPE, wind shear, moisture,-- -- and lifting. (p. 285-286; p.295-309)
The Fujita scale (p. 300-301)
Lightning (p. 290-295)

Wednesday 8/1/2012
Hurricanes -- description, formation, and structure (p.314-331)
There's some interesting anecdotes on storms on p.331-336.

Thursday 8/2/2012
Seattle Weather
Rain shadow (p.126-127, 348)
Puget Sound Convergence Zone (PSCZ) -- air going around Olympic-- -- mountains and converging to form a-- -- band of precipitation on the other-- -- side
Pacific Northwest (PNW) windstorms -- deep lows with strong pressure-- -- gradients
Pineapple Express -- warm, moist air brought up from Hawaii; can lead-- -- to flooding
Snow storms -- need moisture and cold air, but they don't usually-- -- coexist in the PNW. Typical snow conditions when low-- -- tracks southward along coast, pulling cold air from-- -- Canada over the water just long enough to pick up-- -- moisture

Friday 8/3/2012
Lake-effect snow (p.218) + activity
Heat -- the deadliest form of weather
Recall heat index (p.93)
Heat index influenced mostly by temperature and humidity, but sunlight, winds, and pressure are secondary influences.
Heat waves form under upper level ridges, typically with a surface high pressure system to the east of the ridge, and a near-surface inversion in the temperature sounding.

8. Global climate and climate change

Monday 8/6/2012
Climate (p.344-348)
Single-cell model and three-cell model (p.193-199)
Jet streams (p.199-202)

Tuesday 8/7/2012
Seasonality of the ITCZ
Transition zones -- Sahel (p.392)
Monsoons - a reversal of circulation with season (p.184-186)
General Circulation activity

Wednesday 8/8/2012
Ocean currents (p.202-204)
Upwelling and Ekman transport ENSO -- El Nino Southern Oscillation (p.204-207)
Other natural climate variability (NAO, AO, PDO) (p.207-209)
Milankovitch cycles (p.383-385)

Thursday 8/9/2012
Anthropogenic (human-induced) climate change
Aerosols, greenhouse gases, and land use changes (p.388-391)
Global warming (p.391-396)
Volcanoes on the climate (p.386-388)

Friday 8/10/2012
Feedbacks Water vapor (+), Lapse Rate (-), Albedo (+), and Cloud (+/-)
Water vapor feedback: increase temperature -> increase water vapor -> increase temperature -> ...
Lapse rate feedback: Upper tropopsphere warms faster than lower troposphere
Albedo feedback: increase temperature -> melt ice -> reduce albedo -> absorb more sunlight -> increase temperature -> ...
Cloud feedback: Depends on which cloud types change
If |SWCF|>|LWCF| -> cloud cools the earth
If |SWCF|<|LWCF| -> cloud warms the earth

9. Review and wrap-up

Monday 8/13/2012
Midlatitude Cyclone Passage activity
Airmass Identification activity

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