Natural Sciences 101,
Section 5, Fall 2009
Introduction to
Meteorology and Climate
Last updated: September 15, 2009 10:00 am
LABS: The first set of
equipment necessary to do the two Labs will be handed out at the beginning of
today’s class.
If you are in the first group doing the labs, please come
to class early today to pick up your lab equipment. If you are
not sure if you are in the first group, click on the Student lists: Lab 1 Oxygen Lab 2
Latent Heat
The
lab measurements must be completed and the lab instrumentation returned within
the next two weeks. When you
return the instrumentation, you will receive directions
on how to write up you lab results. The lab writeups are due in 3 weeks.
TA,
April Chiriboga, will be the primary contact for any questions regarding the
labs.
CLICKERS: There are still
about 5 students who do not have their student IDs entered correctly in their
clickers. The problem for most of
these is the leading ‘S’ is missing so, for example, 2551669 has been entered
when what should have been entered was S02551669. Those with incorrect student
IDs will loose points on their quiz.
Please
make sure your student ID is entered correctly into you clicker. Your student
ID begins with S0 followed by 7 digits. Again the directions for doing so are
given below under the “NEW Quick guide to
setting up your clicker”
CLASS LISTSERV: There
are still 90 students who are not on the
class is now on the class listserv.
Those who have not, please send the one line e-mail to the listserv to
add yourselves to the listserv or else you will not receive any important
updates sent between classes.
NEWS…
Sep
15: Dept of the Interior launches
climate strategy NY
Times.
Sep
15: Relation between Antarctic ice
sheet formation and CO2 levels 34 Myr ago Reuters
Sep
7: Taiwan prime minister steps down
because of slow response to ~August 9, 2009 Typhoon Morakot which dumped 109
inches of rainfall in 3 days on southern Taiwan NY
Times photos wiki satellite-info
Sep
7: Warmest Arctic temperatures in
2000 years CNN JournalArticle
Aug
31: Hurricane Jimena (now a category 5 with sustained winds of 155 mph) is
coming our way: madweather blog Maps of forecasted tracks
Aug
29: Fires
in LA
Aug
26: US
Chamber of Commerce threatens EPA with lawsuit over climate change
Aug
24: Senate
hearing on climate change in National Parks
CLICKERS ARE AVAILABLE AT THE BOOKSTORE AT CLASS MCB 181R
Bring
your interwrite PRSRF clickers to
first class
NEW
Quick guide to setting up your clicker:
pdf
On
a sheet of paper or 3x5 card, hand in your name and
your clicker radio ID so we can make sure you are correctly loaded
into the class roster. If for some
reason you did not do so at the end of Thursday’s (Aug 27) class, do so at the
beginning of Tuesday’s (9/2) class.
See the quick guide above for directions. Make sure your student ID begins with the letter, S.
We
received 207 radio entries from clickers during Thursday’s class that we are
linking with your name in the class roster. That still leaves approximately 60 clickers from which we
did not yet receive entries.
Class
Hours and Location: Section 5: 2:00 PM
– 03:15 AM (T,Th) in ILC 120.
Review
Sessions
on Wednesday before Thursday quiz. (1) Time: 6:00 PM, Location:
CHEM 111 (holds 250 students). (2) Time: 3 PM, Location: PAS 488 (holds 20 students)
Instructor: Dr. E. Robert
Kursinski (kursinski@atmo.arizona.edu, PAS 580, 621-2139,
621-6831).
Teaching
Assistants:
Mike Stovern (stovern@atmo.arizona.edu, Office: PAS TBD,
Telephone: TBD)
April
Chiriboga (april.chiriboga@gmail.com,
Office: PAS TBD, Telephone: TBD)
Office
Hours:
Dr. Kursinski: by appointment; M. Stovern: Wed 12-2
PM and by appointment; A. Chiriboga: Thurs
9-10 AM and by appointment. Office hours may be in PAS 546, the
Atmospheric Sciences library.
Class
listserv: Please add yourself to the class
listserv
in order to receive important email updates outside of class. To add yourself, send a one-line email
to the address: listserv@listserv.arizona.edu. The one line should read
SUBSCRIBE
nats101s5fall09 firstname lastname
where
you substitute your first and last names for firstname and lastname.
Required
Text: Essentials of Meteorology-An
Invitation to the Atmosphere, 5th Ed. (ISBN 0-534-42264-0) by C. Donald Ahrens
Highly Recommended: Study Guide for Essentials of
Meteorology, 4th Ed. (ISBN 0-534-42266-7) by C. Donald Ahrens.
Available by order at bookstore or online.
Other Required Material: interwrite PRSRF
clickers, used for daily student-to-instructor
feedback, attendance (see below), etc.
Course Description: An introduction to the
science of weather and climate, including (time permitting) atmospheric composition,
energy balance, wind systems, genesis of fronts and cyclones, precipitation
processes, clouds, severe weather, weather prediction, climate and global
warming and optical phenomena. Emphasis will be given to phenomena that have
strong impacts on human activities and economic livelihood such as tornadoes,
hurricanes, El Nino, global warming, ozone depletion, and air pollution. The
fundamental importance of physics, chemistry and mathematics to the atmospheric
sciences will be explored.
Grading Policy: Final grade will be
based on scores from your five best
regularly-scheduled quizzes, impromptu “pop quizzes”, a lab and a comprehensive
final examination. Scheduled quizzes (~every other Thursday) will consist of
approximately 20 total questions that are multiple choice and/or short answer.
Extra credit questions may appear on some quizzes. Each quiz will cover new
material presented up through the end of the latest lecture period. There will
be six quizzes during the term. The quiz
dates are given on the schedule below. Students who arrive late on quiz/exam dates, where late is
defined as arriving after the first student turns in her/his quiz/exam, will not be not allowed to take the quiz/exam. Because
the lowest score among the six quizzes will be
excluded from the course grade, there will be NO
MAKE-UP QUIZZES. Bring your CAT CARD on quiz days!
LABS: Each student will do one lab this
semester. There are two labs to
choose from, 1. Determine how much oxygen is in the air and 2. Determine the latent
heat of the melting of ice. You
will take equipment with you for two weeks to make the measurements, then
return it, receive more information on how to analyze the results, write up
your results and hand them in. We
will break the labs up into 3 or 4 groups on each lab so that at any time about
15% of the class is working on Lab 1 and another 15% are working on Lab 2. Further instructions and a more
detailed schedule will follow.
Pop-quizzes will consist of one to a few
questions. The format of the questions will be primarily multiple choice
questions answered via the clickers. They will be added to your total quiz score.
As incentive to “keep up with the program”, pop quizzes may include material
that is contained in the reading assignment for that day’s lecture.
The final will be Thursday December
17, 2009 2:00 - 4:00 p.m. in ILC
150. No Exceptions. Bring your CAT CARD to
the final! The final will consist
of multiple-choice questions and/or short answer questions. Many will be taken verbatim from the old quizzes.
The lab will count 20% of your grade. If your score on the final exceeds the
average of your five best quizzes, the quizzes
will comprise 50% and the final the remaining 30% of your course grade.
Otherwise the quizzes will comprise 60% and the final the remaining 20%. Any
student with an average of 90% or better on all six
quizzes and their lab will be exempt from
the final and will receive an "A'' for the course. There will be NO EXTRA CREDIT PROJECTS. No Exceptions…so plan accordingly!
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Course Grading
Scale |
||||
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A |
B |
C |
D |
E |
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90% or higher |
89.99-80.0% |
79.99-65.0% |
64.99-55.0% |
Below 55.0% |
Expectations: The reading
assignments for each day's lecture are listed below. You are expected to complete the assigned reading before the lecture. Please ask
questions about the material during lecture, office hours or review sessions.
Per University policy, every student is expected to devote a minimum of two
hours outside of class to studying, reading, etc. for every contact hour in
classroom. See http://catalog.arizona.edu/2004-05/policies/enrpol.htm#unit.
Attendance Policy: Attendance is
mandatory. I will tally attendance during the semester. After three unexcused
absences, you will be issued an administrative drop (prior to the end of week
8) in accord with University of Arizona (UA) policy. http://catalog.arizona.edu/2009-10/policies/classatten.htm.
Bottom line: Just come to class.
Academic Integrity: The UA Code of Academic
Integrity, Code of Conduct and Student Code of Conduct are strictly followed.
All students are responsible for knowing the codes and abiding by them. http://w3.arizona.edu/~studpubs/policies/ppmainpg.html.
You can submit complaints about fellow students online at http://dos.web.arizona.edu/uapolicies/index.html.
Literacy Requirements: There is a science literacy
requirement for this course. For instance, we use scientific notation for
writing numbers (especially for rather large or small ones). We specify units for all physical
quantities (e.g. meters for height, etc.).
Natural Sciences 101,
Section 5, Fall 2009
Introduction to Weather and Climate
Schedule of Topics and Links to Lecture Slides
All Subject to Change, So COME to Class!
|
Week |
Tuesday |
Thursday |
|
Aug 24 – Aug
28 |
Introduction: Why study the
atmosphere? Vertical structure of
the atmosphere |
Density, Pressure
& Temperature Weather vs. Climate |
|
Sep 1 - 5 |
Heat transfer &
Radiation |
Heat transfer &
Radiation |
|
Sep 8 – Sep
12 |
Radiation &
seasons |
Seasons &
Temperature variations |
|
Sep 15 – Sep
19 |
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Sep 22 – Sep
26 |
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Sep 29 – Oct
3 |
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Oct 6 – Oct
10 |
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Oct 13 – Oct
17 |
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Oct 20 – Oct
24 |
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Oct 27 – Oct
31 |
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Nov 3 – Nov
7 |
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Nov 10 – Nov
14 |
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Nov 17 – Nov
21 |
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Nov 24 – Nov
28 |
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Thanksgiving |
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Dec 1 – Dec
5 |
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Dec 8 - 9 |
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Natural Sciences 101,
Section 5, Fall 2009
Introduction to Weather and Climate
Required Reading Assignments for Above Lectures
Essentials of Meteorology: An Invitation to the
Atmosphere 4th Ed.
by C. Donald Ahrens
|
Week |
Tuesday |
Thursday |
|
Aug 24 – Aug 28 |
|
1-22; 435-437 (Appendix A),
441-442 (Appendix C) |
|
Sep 1 - 5 |
25-42 |
25-42, Practice Quiz |
|
Sep 8 – Sep 12 |
42-53 |
55-64 QUIZ 1 |
|
Sep 15 – Sep 19 |
65-74 |
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Sep 22 – Sep 26 |
|
QUIZ 2 |
|
Sep 29 – Oct 3 |
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Oct 6 – Oct 10 |
|
QUIZ 3 |
|
Oct 13 – Oct 17 |
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Oct 20 – Oct 24 |
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QUIZ 4 |
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Oct 27 – Oct 31 |
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Nov 3 – Nov 7 |
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Nov 10 – Nov 14 |
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QUIZ 5 |
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Nov 17 – Nov 21 |
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Nov 24 – Nov 28 |
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Thanksgiving |
|
Dec 1 – Dec 5 |
|
QUIZ 6 |
|
Dec 8 - 9 |
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Natural Sciences 101,
Section 05, Fall 2009
Introduction to Weather and Climate
Questions for Review to Accompany Lectures and Reading
Essentials of Meteorology: An Invitation to the
Atmosphere 4th Ed.
by C. Donald Ahrens
|
Week |
Tuesday |
Thursday |
|
Aug 24 – Aug 28 |
|
1.2, 1.3, 1.10, 1.14,
1.18, 1.19, 1.21, 1.22 |
|
Sep 1 - 5 |
2.1-2.4, 2.7, 2.9-2.12 |
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Sep 8 – Sep 12 |
2.7-2.10, 2.12, 2.14-2.17 |
3.1, 3.2, 3.5, 3.6, 3.14 |
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Sep 15 – Sep 19 |
3.12, 3.13, 3.16, 3.18,
3.19 |
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Sep 22 – Sep 26 |
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Sep 29 – Oct 3 |
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Oct 6 – Oct 10 |
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Oct 13 – Oct 17 |
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Oct 20 – Oct 24 |
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Oct 27 – Oct 31 |
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Nov 3 – Nov 7 |
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Nov 10 – Nov 14 |
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Nov 17 – Nov 21 |
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Nov 24 – Nov 28 |
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Thanksgiving |
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Dec 1 – Dec 5 |
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Dec 8 - 9 |
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