Lecture Outline

Script

Reading

Home Work

Mid Term Example

Final Exam Example

Models

1-D EBM

Field Class

First day
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Second day
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GEOG 5211/4211 - Fall 2003

Professor Konrad Steffen
CIRES Ekeley Building, S264
Tel o: 492 4524
e-mail konrad.steffen@colorado.edu

Lecture Tuesday &Thursday
9:30 – 11:45 AM.; CIRES/CSES W240

Office hours
Wednesday 11-12 AM, 1 - 2 PM 

Required Text
Boundary Layer Climates, T.R. Oke, Methuen London and New York  ISBN: 0 415-04319-0, 2nd edition (paperback) 

Recommended Reading 
Global Physical Climatology, D.L. Hartmann, Academic Press, 1994, pp.408. ISBN: 0 12-328530-5
A climate modeling primer, McGuffie, K., and A. Henderson-Sellers, John Wiley and Sons, (2nd edition), pp. 253, 1997. 

Grading
One midterm, worth 40% (tentatively Oct. 14), comprehensive final exam worth 60%. Graduate students will write a term paper in addition.

View Graphs
http://cires.colorado.edu/steffen/classes/geog5211/index.html

Field Trips
There will be a two day field trip, (mandatory) to become acquainted with different radiation and heat flux instruments. Tentative date: Saturday - Sunday  Nov. 8/9, or Nov. 22/23, 2003. In exchange there will be no classes on Aug. 28,  Sept. 2&4, Oct. 16&21, and Nov. 11&13, 2003.

Course Outline
Introduces physical principles of flows of heat and moisture to and from the Earth's surface, interaction and modeling of such flows, and their distribution in space and time. The course is designed to introduce students to the nature of the atmosphere near the ground and it is based on the application of simple physical principles, and an exposition that is explanatory rather than descriptive. The physical basis of the boundary layer climatology will be discussed in terms of energy and mass fluxes over non-vegetated and vegetated surfaces. The course includes two field trips where heat flux measurements such as radiation balance, sensible and latent heat fluxes will be demonstrated. The students will become acquainted with different field instruments throughout this course.

It is expected to appeal to two groups of students:

• First, those who want to know about the role of the atmosphere in environmental science and its application in geography, agriculture, forestry, ecology, engineering and planning;
• Second, those embarked on a more specialist course in small scale meteorology who wish to supplement their technical material with examples of atmospheric systems from many real world environments.