Syllabus

Atmospheric Sciences 211

Autumn 1999

1.0 Overview: Climate and Climate Change

1.1 Climate and American People

1.2 Earth's Climate: A Dynamic System

1.3 Why Does Our Climate Change?

1.4 Can Humans Change the Climate?

1.5 The Greenhouse Effect

1.6 Why are Greenhouse Gases Changing?

1.7 Aerosols: Sunscreen for the Planet?

1.8 How has Climate Changed in the Last Century?

1.9 Can We Predict Climate Change?

1.10 What do Climate Models Predict About the Future?

1.11 Where do We Go from Here?

2.0 Climate and Earth Systems

2.1 Definition of Climate

2.2 "Spheres" of the Earth

2.3 Cycles, Reservoirs, and Flows in the Earth System

3.0 Energy, Radiation and Earth's Heat Balance

3.1 Energy Conservation

3.1.1 Forms of Energy

3.1.2 Energy Transformation

3.1.3 Chemical Energy and Latent Heat

3.1.4 Energy Quality and the Law of Energy Degradation

3.1.5 Energy Flow, Power, and Efficiency

3.2 Heat Transfer

3.3 Solar Radiation

3.3.1 The Distance of the Earth from the Sun

3.3.2 Tilt of the Axis of Rotation

3.3.3 Albedo

3.3.4 FeedbackProcessesin Climate

3.4 Terrestrial Radiation

3.4.1 Stefan-Boltzmann Law

3.5 Planetary Equilibrium Temperature

3.6 Wavelength Dependence of Solar and Terrestrial Radiation

3.7 The Greenhouse Effect

3.7.1 The Greenhouse Effects of Gases

3.7.2 The Greenhouse Effects of Clouds

3.8 The Global Energy Budget

3.8.1 The Energy Budget at the Top of the Atmosphere

4.0 Atmospheric Composition and Climate

4.1 Biogeochemical Cycles and Atmospheric Composition

4.1.1 Background

4.1.2 Atmospheric Composition

4.2 Carbon Cycle of the Atmosphere, Ocean and Biosphere

4.2.1 Overall Carbon Cycle

4.2.2 The Geological Part of the Carbon Cycle

4.3 The Oxygen Budget

4.4 Earth and the Other Planets Compared

4.4.1 Earth

4.4.2 Venus

4.4.3 Mars

4.4.4 Earth Compared with Mars and Venus; Habitable Zones

4.5 The Gaia Hypothesis

4.5.1 Why Has Our Climate Been So Stable?

4.6 History of Earth

5.0 Atmospheric and Oceanic Circulation and Climate

5.1 Circulation in the Atmosphere and Oceans

5.1.1 Geographical Variations in Climate: the Radiative Influence

5.2 Atmospheric Circulation

5.2.1 Tropical Circulation in the Atmosphere

5.2.2 Extratropical Circulation in the Atmosphere

5.2.2.1 Introductory comments

5.2.2.2 Wind and pressure are closely related

5.2.2.3 The "polar vortex"

5.3 Wind Driven Circulation in the Oceans

5.3.1 Ekman Spiral and "Wind Drift"

5.3.2 Geostrophic Currents

5.3.3 Wind-Driven General Circulation of the Ocean

5.4 Thermohaline Circulation of the Ocean

6.0 Water and Climate

6.1 Global Water Budget

6.1.1 Water Availability

6.1.2 Local Precipitation and Evaporation

6.2 The Cryosphere and its Role in Climate

6.2.1 Components by Time Scale of Variability

6.2.2 Cryosphere Inventory

6.2.3 The Cryosphere During the Last Glacial Maximum 18000 BP

6.2.4 The Cryosphere and Global Sea Level

6.3 Climate Regimes

6.3.1 Climate Taxonomy

6.3.2 The Climate Types

6.3.3 The Modern Approach to Climate

7.0 The History of Climate

7.1 Time Series Analysis: Trends and Flucturations

7.1.1 Means, Standard Deviations and Trends

7.1.2 Oscillations in Time Series

7.1.3 Addition of Oscillations

7.2 Sources of Information: Proxy Data

7.2.1 Proxy Data: Types of Evidence

7.2.2 Dating Climatic Records

7.3 Past Climates: The Record

7.3.1 Pleistocene Epoch

7.3.2 Holocene Epoch

7.4 Climate Predictability

7.4.1 Stochastic Forcing of Climate

7.4.2 Intransitivity of System

8.0 Natural Forcing of Climate

8.1 On Long Time Scales: The Ice Ages

8.1.1 Chronology of Investigations of the Pleistocene Glacial Periods

8.1.2 Difficulties with the Milankovitch Hypothesis

8.2 Short Time Scales: El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO)

8.2.1 Introduction

8.2.2 The Phenomenon

8.3 Other Possible External Causes for Climate Change

8.3.1 Tectonism

8.3.2 Variations in Solar Activity

8.3.3 Volcanoes

9.0 Greenhouse Gases and Atmospheric Aerosol Particles

9.1 Greenhouse Gases and Climate Change

9.1.1 Background

9.1.2 CO2 and Climate Change Facts and Hypotheses

9.1.3 The Carbon Budget

9.1.4 Climatic Effects of CO2 Increases

9.1.5 Regional Climate Sensitivites in the Pacific Northwest

9.1.6 Global Warming Skeptics

9.2 Effects of Other Trace Gases

9.2.1 Background

9.2.2 Some Important Trace Gases

9.3 Radiative Effects of Other Trace Gases

9.4 Aerosols and Climate Change

9.4.2 Climatic Effects of Aerosol Particles

10.0 Thinning of the Ozone Layer

10.1 The Natural Ozone Layer

10.1.1 Distribution of Ozone in the Atmosphere

10.2 Biological Effects of UV-B Radiation

10.3 Ozone Photochemistry: Formation of Ozone Layer

10.3.1 The Chapman Model

10.3.2 Catalytic Cycles Involving Ozone Destruction

10.4 Human Impacts on the Ozone Layer

10.5 Antarctic Ozone Hole

11.0 The Human Role in Earth System Processes

11.1 A Broader View of Earth Systems

11.1.2 The Human Recycling Path

11.2 Human Impacts on Earth System Cycles

11.2.1 Exponential Growth and Doubling Time

11.2.3 Demographic Transition, Total Fertility Rate, and Future Population

11.2.4 Malthus, Neo-Malthusians, and Technological Optimists

11.3 Resource Consumption and Energy

11.4 Energy Economics

11.5 How are Fossil Fuel Deposits Formed and Where are they Located? 10

11.6 How Much Fossil Fuel is There?

11.7 Hubbert Curves

11.8 Conclusions

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