ATMOS 6020
Physical Meteorology
Syllabus
These weeks are taught in person during scheduled class hours
These weeks are taught synchronously during scheduled class hours online
Week 1 Basic State Variables
August 24 Intro, Intensive and Extensive variables, the Ideal Gas Law
August 26 Moisture, the relationship between internal energy and enthalpy
Week 2 Changing atmospheric energy
August 31 Doing work, Heating, The First Law of Thermodynamics
September 2 Heating to working, Efficiency, The Past, The General Circulation
Week 3 Forms of Atmospheric Energy I
September 9 Turbulent Kinetic Energy and dissipation, geopotential, pressure and height
Week 4 Forms of Atmospheric Energy II
September 14 Frequency versus potential, latent heat, specific heat at constant volume
September 16 Specific heat at constant pressure, enthalpy, potential temperature, radiation
Week 5 Forms of Atmospheric Energy III
September 21 Dry and Moist static Energy, dry lapse rate, radiative heating to winds, equivalent potential temperature
September 23 Buoyancy, stability, buoyant potential energy and CAPE
Week 6 Energetic transitions
September 28 Quasi-equilibrium transitions, phase changes, vapor pressure and temperature
September 30 Moist adiabatic lapse rate, mixing to make a cloud, overview of thermodynamic charts Tutorial in Convective Available Potential Energy
Week 7 Reversible and Irreversible transformations
October 5 Entropy, Available energy, Relative humidity, Irreversibility
October 7 Carnot cycles and hurricanes, evaporation
Week 8 Advanced thermodynamic topics
October 12 Ficks Law, the LaPlacian
October 14 Size distributions and their origins
Week 9 Cloud formation I
October 19 Cloud structures. Plumes and Thermals
October 21 Aerosols to Clouds.avi Droplet nucleation
Week 10 Cloud formation II
October 26 Ice crystal nucleation
October 28 Droplet and ice crystal growth
Week 11 Precipitation and Introduction to radiation
November 2 Formation of rain and snow
November 4 Electromagnetic waves
Week 12 Flux, Intensity and Dipole Scattering
November 9 Flux, intensity and transmission
November 11 Dipole radiation and blue skies
Week 13 Dipole and multiple scattering
November 16 Interference and white clouds, single scattering parameters
November 18. Atmospheric optics, multiple scattering, cloud albedo
Week 14 Quantization of atmospheric molecular absorption
November 23 Light as quanta, Blackbody radiation, Radiative Equilibrium with gases
November 25 Kirchoff’s Law Atmospheric greenhouse gases, molecular absorption
Week 15 Atmospheric infrared absorption
November 30 Major atmospheric absorption gases and lines
December 2. Schwarzchild equation, IR remote sensing
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