Meteorology 3410- Weather Observations and Analysis I

Instructor- 1st half: John Horel

Office Hours: T-TH 1-2 or by appointment; INSCC 483

Phone: 581-7091

Instructor- 2nd half: Steve Krueger

Office Hours: ; WBB 817

Phone: 581-3903

Course Description: The goals of the first half are to refresh and further develop the basic tools required for a professional in the f ield of atmospheric sciences. Applications of thermodynamics in the atmospheric sciences follow in the second half.

Class Hours: MW 10:45-12:05. Substantial additional time will be required to complete computer assignments.

Classroom: 490 INSCC

Prerequisites: PHYS 2220, Concurrent with Math 3150, CP SC 1020. (See overview for further information)

Grading: The course grade will be determined from class participation and assignments (50%), take-home midterm assignment (25%), and final on material from 2nd hald of course (25%).

Text: Weather Analysis by Dusan Duric (this book is optional, appropriate handouts will be given in class to complete assignments.)

Course Outline: (by week)

First half: Computational Science & Applied Math

1 (1 class): Navigating the Internet. Assignment: using the web server to access weather information

2: Editor Review, Unix commands. Assignment: develop personal web page

3: Unix scripts and Perl. Assignment: access to Utah Mesonet data

4:Fortran and C review. Assignment: computing the geostrophic wind.

5: Graphics. xmgr & vis5d. Assignment: visualizing atmospheric motion

6: Review of math concepts. Assigment: horizontal trajectories

7 (1 class): Atmospheric predictability. Assignment: Error growth.

8: Climate and statistics. Assignment: analysis of the Salt Lake City climate record.

Second Half: Thermodynamics

9: Introduction. The equation of state.

10: Work, heat, and specific heat capacity.

11: First law of thermodynamics. Adiabatic processes.

12: Equation of state of moist air. Moisture variables.

13: Phase changes and latent heat. Adiabatic processes of saturated air .

14 (1 class): Hydrostatic stability and convection.

15: Hydrostatic stability and convection.

16:

Updated last on August 23, 1999