Calendar ATM 456/656 Climate and Climate Change(3 Credits), Fall 2007

Homework ATM 656

Hartmann book unless otherwise indicated, Tentative homework plan for both graduate and undergraduate students is listed below and is based on revised 2005 homework assignments.
Undergraduates will get 1-2 additional problems each week that covers more basic concepts in atmospheric sciences (Basic problems from the introductory text by ‘Wallace and Hobbs’ ) that will help them with doing the homework problem set for that week. There will be one homework problem from the Hartmann text, in each homework assignment, that only the graduate level students will be required to hand in.

Homework 1: Ch. 1: 1, 2, 3 DUE Week 2
Homework 2: Ch. 2: 2, 3, 4 DUE Week 3
Homework 3: Ch. 3: 1, 2, 3, 4 DUE Week 4
Homework 4: Ch. 4: 1, 3 & 6 Ch.5: 2, 3, DUE Week 5
Homework 5: Ch. 6: 3, 4, 6 ; Ch. 7: 1, 2, 5 DUE Week 6
Homework 6: Ch. 8: 6, 7 DUE Week 8
Homework 7: Ch. 9: 4, 6 DUE Week 13

Project Details

Deadlines for Project
• Project Choice and rough outline 1: Week 4
Choose from the list of possible topics below (preferable) or pick a mutually agreed upon topic (I want students to explore a topic that is not directly part of their research to broaden their knowledge).
• Project Outline Revised: Week 5
• Decide on Key Project Papers, give me list: Week 7
• Provide Presentation Outline: Week 10, revise within a week if necessary
• Go over Slides with me during week before presentation: Week 13 or Week 14 and implement suggestions

Project Topics, will add more depending on number of students in class.

1. El Niño: Air-sea interactions in the tropics and predictability
2. El Niño: Teleconnections to remote parts of the globe
3. Hadley Circulations
4. South Asian Monsoon
5. Impact of Humans on Climate - Early
6. Impact of Humans on Climate - Recent
7. North American Ice Sheets and Climate
8. Sahel Rainfall Variability and Trends
9. Climate variability of the Amazon Basin
10. Abrupt Climate Change – Younger Dryas
11. Atlantic Hurricanes: Trends and controversies
12. Multi-decadal variability of the Atlantic Sector
13. Multi-decadal variability of the Pacific Sector
14. Changes in global mean sea level

Project Requirements

1. Prepare and present a 30 minute for graduate level and 15 minute for undergraduate level (including questions) talk to the class on the chosen topic. 60% of project grade is based on the presentation.
2. Write a term paper on the topic (5 pages undergraduates, 10 pages graduates). 40% of project grade is based on the paper
3. Extra Credit: Prepare a web page on this topic at the high school science level. The web page will be displayed for years to come linked to my teaching pages. This extra credit project is worth 10% of the project grade, so it can be used to raise your grade one level.

Expectations of Undergraduate Level Students for Project
• Summarize the topic based on key classical book chapters/papers (provided by instructor)
• Describe the particular phenomena and display a basic understanding for how the particular phenomena work (i.e. what are the important components of the climate system that impact this phenomena?) based on accepted classical thinking

Expectations of Graduate Level Students for Project
• Satisfy the two steps above for the undergraduate level.
• Present newer views on topic found in literature.
• Present the weaknesses and controversies in the conventional thinking about the phenomena. Provide newer evidence (may be from journal articles or from research done by student) to illustrate where the weaknesses are. This is to strengthen your critical thinking skills.
• Make a statement on what they think the next important step needs to be to further our understanding of this phenomena (e.g. better computer models with higher resolution to resolve clouds) and support it with evidence. This is to strengthen your creativity skills.