ATOC 1060 (002) Fall 2009 Our Changing Environment: El Nino, Ozone, and Climate (Page for class members)

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overview |  lectures | office hours  | links | assignments

Overview

The Earth’s climate has been changing since its formation 4.6 billion years ago. Climate varies on all time scales and is known to experience periods of glaciation as well as warmer periods. Since the industrial revolution, humans have burned large amounts of fossil fuels changing the composition of the atmosphere, cleared large forested regions for agriculture and caused climate to change.

Discusses the Earth's climate focusing on the role of the atmosphere, oceans, and land surface. Describes the water cycle, atmospheric circulations, and ocean currents, and how they influence global climate, El Nino, the ozone hole, and the human impacts from climate change. This class can be taken by nonscience majors.

Instructor: David Noone<dcn@colorado.edu>

When: Fall 2009; Tuesday and Thursday 12:30-1:45pm

Where: Duane (Physics) lecture theater G1B20

Prerequisites: ATOC 1050

Grading: homework (40%), in-class problems and clickers (10%), midterm exam (20%) final exam (30%)

Office hours:
Prof. David Noone: 2-5pm Tuesdays by appointment, Ekeley S234
TA: Derek Brown: Wednesday 12-2pm, Ekeley W225, S231 (double check availability email: Derek.Brown@colorado.edu)

Exam: Wednesday, 16 December 1:30 pm - 4:00pm

Textbook

Kump, L. R., J. F Kasting and R. G. Crane, The earth system, Prentice Hall, 2nd edition, 2004. (Copies is on reserve in the Math-Physics library) (There is a new 3rd edition - which will also be fine for this class).

Download syllabus (PDF file)

Remember to register your clicker - Go to the ITS web site for instructions.
In short, go to CUconnect and log on, click on "courses", click on "CU clicker registration", type in the number and hit the "register" button. The table should show you clicker as active.

Lecture Notes

Reading assignments are from Kump, Kasting and Crane. In class assignment sheets can be downloaded for your review. Notice reading assignments and lecture topics more than a week or so in advance are approximate and subject to change as time constraints require. The reading is provided as background, and is the basis of the material seen in lectures. To be able to do in-class exercises and participate in discussion you will need to have done the reading ahead of time.

Of the mostly complete list of demos that Scott has up his sleeves, we will look at about a quarter of them in class.

Homework assignments

Homework will be handed in at the end of lectures.

HW 1: The Hansens' letter to the Obamas. Due 1:45 Thursday  10 September
Download the assignment sheet. Read the Hansens' letter to Michelle and Barak Obama. For further reading, you might also look at Hansen's "http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/20081229_Obama_revised.pdf", which contains some more technical aspects behind the letter itself. Also, you may wish to refer to the CO₂ record from Mauna Loa from Hawaii, or get the latest CO2 trends from NOAA's ESRL Lab in Boulder.

HW 2: The geenhouse effect. Due 1:45 Thursday 24 September
Download the assignment sheet. Don't be afraid to look for planets in our solar system on wikipedia to get more details.

HW 3: Graphing climate variability. Due 1:45 Thursday 1 October
Download the assignment sheet. See original data source at the Desert Research Institute, say, for Boulder.

HW4 : Hurricanes and SST. Due 1:45 TUESDAY 3 November
Download the assignment.
Unisys hurricane web site: http://weather.unisys.com/hurricane
NOAA OSD SST data: http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/ml/ocean/sst/anomaly.html

HW5: Carbon cycle. Due 1:45 Thursday 12 November
Download the assignment

HW6:Climate of the past. Due 1:45 Thursday 19 November
Download the assignment

HW7: Climate variability. Due 1:45 Thursday 3 December
Download the assignment

HW8: Climate change. Due 1:45 Thursday 10 December
 

Midterm exam
Done!

Final exam
Coming soon...