Physics 621 - Atmospheric Physics I

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Instructors: Prof. Raymond M. Hoff

                     Research Assoc. Prof. William Olson

M-W 8:30-9:45 Physics 107

Office Hours by appointment

Dr. Hoff will be in Physics most afternoons in Room 426

Dr. Olson will be available at 301-614-6314 and olson@agnes.gsfc.nasa.gov

Grading:

Midterm 30%

Homework 20%

Paper 20%

Final  30%

Generally, 85% will constitute an A, >70% a B, and <=69% a C.

Description:

Composition and structure of the Earth's atmosphere, application of thermodynamics to atmospheric problems, development of the fundamental equations of fluid motion, applications to synoptic scale atmospheric circulations, boundary layer effects, global circulation, and other selected topics.

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Texts: Houghton, "The Physics of Atmospheres" (required)
Lutgens and Tarbuck, "The Atmosphere" (supplementary)
Salby, "Fundamentals of Atmospheric Physics" (supplementary)
Andrews, "An Introduction to Atmospheric Physics" (supplementary)

Course Syllabus

Lecture Topics Covered (Subject to change)

1.  Introduction to Physics 621 and the Atmospheric Physics program.  Formation of the atmosphere.

Assignment #1

Assignment #1 Problem #1 Solutions  Word (21k)  PDF (11k)

About Academic Integrity (WORD 25kb)

Baltimore Sun Article about Water on Mars (JPG 794kb)

2.  Finding your way around the planet...the top 100 km

3.  Introduction to physical meteorology. Radiative equilibrium and fluxes. Dalton's Law. Hydrostatic equation.

4.  Types of energy: work, heat, radiation. Air parcels. Lapse Rate. Heat capacity of air. Carnot's cycle.

5.  Carnot efficiency. Tropical cyclone convection. Chapter 2: radiative transfer introduction.

6.  Radiative transfer (cont'd). Intensity and Flux. Blackbodies. Planck's function. Wien's Law. Vibrations. Rotations.

7.  Radiative transfer (cont'd). RTE in plane parallel atmosphere.Radiative flux balance.

Assignment #2 Solutions  PDF (409k)

8.  Radiative fluxes and heating rates.

Assignment #3 PDF (1.4MB)

9. 

10. 

11.  Clausius-Clapeyron equation. Pseudo-adiabatic lapse rate. Conditional stability.

Assignment #3 SolutionsPDF (400 kB)

12.  How to create a tephigram

Tephigram explanation in powerpoint. Click here to anonymously ftp login to lighthouse.jcet.umbc.edu. If your browser then displays a directory format, get the file. If not, when asked for name and password, enter "anonymous" and your email address. Then type "get lecture_3.2copy.ppt". If you have trouble, contact Dr. Hoff

13.  How to draw the tephigram. Shortwave radiative transfer. Scattering Theory.

14.  Scattering. Flux of energy in the shortwave.

Assignment #4 SolutionsPDF (287 kB)

Assignment #5 PDF (82 kB)

15.  Cloud production. Condensation. Collection.

Lecture # 15 NotesPPT (6.5 MB)

16. 

Lecture # 16 NotesPPT (5.6 MB)

Assignment #5 SolutionsPDF (506 kB)

Take Home Midterm - Handed out at beginning of class on October 27, 2003. Lecture cancelled. Midterm due 08:30 AM October 29, 2003.

17.  Dynamics (Houghton Chapter 7). Navier-stokes equation.

Assignment #6: Houghton Problems 7.1, 7.2, 7.4, 7.5, 7.7, 7.8, 7.10 Due Wednesday November 5.

18.  Scale analysis of the N-S equation. Geostrophic approximation. Cyclostrophic approximation.