Atmospheric Sciences 571 Advanced Physical Climatology Autumn 2000 Outline

1. History of Earth's Climate ~ 2 weeks

Deep History- the last 5 billion years

. . Evolution of the Solar System

. . Total Solar Irradiance-Stellar Evolution

. . Continental Drift

. . Mountain Building

. . . . Genesis of the Asian summer monsoon

Paleoclimatic Proxies- the last couple million years

. . Ocean Cores

. . . . Oxygen isotopes

. . . . Carbon Isotopes

. . . . Species assemblages

. . . . . . The great tropical SST controversy

. . Ice Cores

. . . . Oxygen isotopes

. . . . Inert gases trapped in ice

. . . . Particulates

Instrumental and Historical data-the last couple hundred years

. . Surface Air Temperature

. . Marine temperatures

. . Clouds

2. Sensitivity of Climate ~ 2 weeks

Global Energy Balance

1-D Radiative-Convective models

. . Role of constituents

. . Water Vapor Feedback

. . Lapse rate feedback

. . Role of Clouds

. . Cloud feedback

Ice-albedo feedback and energy balance climate models

. . Budyko and Sellers models

. . Realistic appraisals of ice-albedo feedback

Biofeedback

. . Vegetation-albedo feedback

. . Daisyworld parable

. . Biogenic Sulfur and clouds

3. Global Climate Models ~ 1 week

The Atmosphere Component

. . Role of atmospheric transport

The Land Component

The Ocean Component

. . Ocean circulation, storage and transport

4. Sensitivity Studies with GCM's ~ 1 week

Methodology and interactions between feedbacks

Evaluation of basic atmospheric feedbacks

Sea-ice feedback and polar amplification

Coupled climate models

5. Modeling Natural Climate Changes ~2 weeks

Total Solar Irradiance Variability

Volcanic Aerosols and Climate Variability

The orbital parameter theory

. . History

. . Orbital parameters and their effects

. . Testing with paleoclimatic data

Modeling Ice ages

. . Role of forcing mechanisms

. . Role of interhemispheric variations

. . Transient responses - Younger Dryas cool epoch

6. Modeling Anthropogenic climate change ~ 2 weeks

Increasing greenhouse gases

Doubling CO2 experiments - equilibrium response

. . Uncertainties in the equilibrium response

. . . . Clouds

. . . . Water vapor

. . . . Land surface changes

Time-dependent changes- in mixed-layer models

Time-dependent coupled model predictions

Modeling recent trends - reconciling theory and observation

Modeling changes in the diurnal cycle

Modeling the anthropogenic sulfur effect on global warming