Announcements:

Tuesday, May 9:

Final class grades including the final exam are posted. Please let me know if you think there are any mistakes ASAP as I will be sending along the official grades soon. I wish you all a nice summer break.

Monday, May 2:

Class grades prior to the final exam are posted. You may pick up all graded material in class tomorrow. If you have any questions about the grading, you should ask them in class tomorrow morning. I will talk about the final exam and how to prepare for the final exam in class tomorrow. If you are considering taking the final, you should gather together the three semester exams and bring them to class tomorrow. If you are satisfied with your grade, do not care to pick up graded material, and are definitely not taking the final, then you do not need to come to class tomorrow.

Friday, April 20:

I have placed an exam 3 topic outline and the answers to spring 2010, exam 3 multiple choice questions under the Old Exams link.

Thursday, April 14:

Homework 5 is posted under the Homework Link. Please read all the instructions carefully before writing your paper. Printed papers are due in class on Tuesday, April 26. You do not need to submit your papers to turnitin.com.

Monday, April 11:

Grades for the term papers are posted under the Grades Link. You can pick up your papers in class tomorrow. The column "Class Ave" on the gradesheet is your class average based on everything that has been graded. The class average is weighted so that exams count 60%, term paper 20%, and all homeworks combined 20%.

Thursday, April 7:

The term papers are almost all graded and will be returned to you in class on Tuesday. Grades will be posted soon. There are 7 students who did submit a paper in class, but did not register with turnitin.com. An email was sent to each of the students. Those students will not be given a grade for the term paper until after I run the papers through turnitin.com.

Monday, April 4:

Grades for exam 2 are posted under the Grades link. The exams will be returned in class tomorrow.

Tuesday, March 29:

The answers to multiple choice questions for exam 2, spring 2010 are now posted under the the Old Exams link.

Monday, March 28:

To answer a few questions about what is on the exam, I have included a topic outline for exam 2 under the the Old Exams link.

Friday, February 25:

Homework 4 is posted under the homework link. You should be able to answer most of the questions now. After lecture on Tuesday, March 1, we will have covered all of the topics contained in homework 4.

Thursday, February 24:

Homework 3 is graded. The scores are on the grades link. I will pass back the homeworks in class on Tuesday. If there is anyone who still wants to turn in homework 3 for some credit (late), you must do so before the graded homeworks are returned on Tuesday.

Thursday, February 17:

Remember the due date for the cap and trade term paper is approaching. I moved the due date back to Tuesday, March 8. I also added instructions for submitting your paper to turnitin.com under the homework link

Tuesday, February 15:

You may want to bring a calculator to the exam on Thursday to use for the relative humidity and dew point calculations. I forgot to mention that during the review today.

Tuesday, February 15:

Homework 2 grades are posted under the grades link. Please let me know if there are any errors.

Sunday, February 6:

Homework 2 is due in class on Tuesday. All of the maps necessary to complete the assignment are now available. Please read note under the last true map.

Thursday, February 3:

Homework #3 is posted under the homework link. Please start to look over the assignment. We have already covered material to do questions 1 and 2. We will cover the material necessary to answer the other questions during lecture next week. If you understand the reading material, you may be able to work out some of the other questions now. The homework is due on February 17, the day of the first exam. You will be able to ask questions about the homework before the main lecture material in each class before February 17. I have posted all of the reading pages covering material that will be included with exam 1, even though we may not finish all of it on Tuesday.

Wednesday, February 2:

A couple of announcements. First, I placed last year's exams under the OLD EXAMS link. These can be used as a guide to the type of questions that I ask on exams. Second, I added some notes on water vapor to the reading material for tomorrow's class. You may want to read over and/or print this document, instead of trying to write it all down in class.

Wednesday, January 26:

Homework #2 is posted under the homework link. Please read over the assignment as I wil discuss it in class tomorrow.

Friday, January 21:

Grades for homework #1 are posted under the homework link. Please make sure you can find your class username. If you forgot the name you selected or would like to change your class webname, please send me an email. There are currently 12 students registered for the class who have not completed homework #1. If you have not submitted homework #1 you should do so ASAP.

Thursday, January 20:

I have placed instructions for the term paper under the homework link. Please read over the instructions before classes next week. I will discuss the details of the paper in class next week.

Saturday, January 15:

I added a paragraph and a sentence to the first reading page on 500 mb maps. I apologize for doing this so late, but it includes something we will discuss in lecture on Tuesday. Most likely we will not get to the material in the third reading page on the properties of gases until Thursday's class, so concentrate on the first two pages.

Thursday, January 13:

Welcome to Atmospheric Sciences 336. Please periodically check this area for class announcements.

Course Objectives:

This course examines basic weather phenomena, climate variability and climate change, and their associated effects on people. The possibility and implications of human-caused changes in the climate system are also discussed.

Web page:

http://www.atmo.arizona.edu/students/courselinks/spring11/atmo336/home.html

Course Hours/Location:

Tuesday, Thursday   9:30 - 10:45  
Integrated Learning Center (ILC), Room 150.

Instructor:

Dr. Dale Ward, Lecturer / Research Scientist
Department of Atmospheric Sciences
Email: ward@atmo.arizona.edu (Best way to contact me)
Office: Physics and Atmospheric Sciences (PAS) Building, Room 566D.
Office Hours: Monday 1:00 - 2:00 and Tuesday 11:00 - 12:00 (after class) or by appointment.

Teaching Assistant:

Simona Seastrand
Email: seastrand@atmo.arizona.edu
Office: Physics and Atmospheric Sciences (PAS) Building, Room 510
Office Hours: Wednesday 2:00 - 3:00 and Thursday 3:30 - 5:00 or by appointment.

Class Notes / Important Dates:

There is no textbook for this course. Lectures will be based on the reading material posted under the Lectures Link and additional material that will be distributed during lectrues throughout the semester. I expect that each student read over the relevant reading material before the lecture is presented in class. This is important because the you will be famaliar with what I discuss in lecture and better able to understand it.

Important dates, such as homework deadlines, exam dates, etc., will be posted in the class calendar.

Grading:

Homework:

Homework assignments will be given periodically during the semester. These will consist of short written papers and brief problem sets. The sum total of all homework accounts for 20% of your final grade. Individual homework assignments may not be weighted equally in determining your overall class homework grade. Expect about four homeworks to be assigned during the semester (not including the simple homework #1, which is due after the first week of class).

Your homework assignments will be graded on the quality and clarity of your English as well as their content. No cheating, fabrication, facilitating academic dishonesty, or plagiarism will be tolerated (see University of Arizona Code of Academic Integrity). The term paper and perhaps some of the homework assignments will be filtered through Turnitin.

All homework assignments will be available on the class web page. Homework assignments turned in late will incur a grade reduction of 10% per day.

Term Paper:

A term paper on the subject of the United States adopting a carbon cap and trade policy will be required for each student.

The term paper will account for 20% of your final class grade. It is due on March 3, which is approximately the midway point in the semester. I strongly suggest that you begin to work on your paper long before the due date. The paper accounts for a significant portion of your final grade.

Exams:

There will be 3 in-class exams and a final exam. Exam grades account for 60% of your final grade. Each in-class exam will account for 20% of your final grade. The exams will consist of a mixture of multiple choice and short answer questions. The in-class exams are not comprehensive in that the questions concentrate on material covered since the last exam. However, it is expected that you are familiar with some of the basic concepts covered early in the semester.

Questions from previous exams will be made available on the class web pages.

Final exam is Tuesday, May 10 from 8:00 - 10:00 in the regular classroom, ILC 150.

Exam Policy:

You are expected to study and understand material covered in class during lecture as well as to read the relevant material from the class notes. Exam questions will be taken from both the in-class lectures and the reading material included in the class web pages.

Please contact the instructor (preferrably via e-mail) as soon as possible if for an unexpected reason you are unable to be in class for an exam. A make-up exam will be arranged with sufficient proof. No make-up exam will be given unless you notify the instructor BEFORE missing the exam in class. In general, I would prefer make-up exams to be taken before the exam is given in class.

Grade Scale:

Your final grade will be curved and therefore depends on everybody else's grades. However, the grade scale will not be any more difficult than A(90%); B(80%); C(70%); D(60%).