Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it.

- Charles Dudley Warner

AOSC 200 FALL 2011

AOSC 200 Weather and Climate Lecture Time and Location:There are two sessions of lectures for this course.Session 1 12.30 pm – 1.45 pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays in CSS2324Session 2 2.00 pm – 3.15 pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays in PHY1412Discussion Time and LocationFor Session 1:

0101 Wednesday 1.00 pm to 1.50 pm in CSS 24280102 Wednesday 2.00 pm to 2.50 pm in CSS 24280103 Wednesday 3.00 pm to 3.50 pm in CSS 2428 0104 Wednesday 1.00 pm to 1.50 pm in PLS 1146

For Session 20201 Wednesday 2.00 pm to 2.50 pm in CHM 12280202 Wednesday 3.00 pm to 3.50 pm in KEB 12000203 Monday 1.00 pm to 1.50 pm in CSS 24280204 Monday 2.00 pm to 2.50 pm in CSS 2428

Textbook: Meteorology: Understanding the Atmosphere, by Ackerman and Knox

TA’s• 0101, 0104,Stephen Baxter,

sbaxter@atmos.umd.edu

• 0204, Ben Johnston, aosc200ben@yahoo.com

• 0201, 0202, Allison Monarski, amonarck@umd.edu

• 0203, Jordan Foley, jfoley@atmos.umd.edu

• 0102, 0103, Dr. Jeffrey Stehr, stehr@atmos.umd.edu

AOSC 200 Weather and Climate• Course website

www.atmos.umd.edu/~hudson/aosc200.d• Contains:(1) Each lecture in Power-point format on web page.

Go to AOSC200 LECTURESuser name: aosc200password: aosc200f09

(1) Syllabus and class schedule(2) The projects(3) All class information will be posted on the website.• A weather forecasting primer can be found at

www.atmos.umd.edu/~hudson/forecastchecklist.htm

Grading • The course will be graded on the basis of a mid-term

exams (25% of the final grade) , a final exam(30% of the final grade), three projects (25% of the final grade), and 6 quizzes (20% of the final grade).

• The projects will be group efforts. Students in each discussion section will be assigned to groups of from five to six students.

• The subject of each project will be the application of weather/climate to our every day lives, e.g. prepare a poster on ’The impact of climate forecasting on the commodities market’.

• The projects are in lieu of homework, students are expected to work on the project outside of classroom hours. Also 20 minutes of each discussion session will be allocated to group meetings.

Projects

• Work on the projects will be in three stages:• (1) An outline of the product and group

assignments (20%)• (2) A draft of the product for comments• (3) The final product.(50%)• (4) Presentation (30%)• Each group member will also be asked to grade

the other members of the group on their overall contribution to the project.

Who am I?• My PhD was in Physics. My research thesis was in

Spectroscopy. Each molecule or atom emits and absorbs radiation in unique regions – like a finger print. One can use this fact to identify the molecule or atom.

• Before joining UM in 1990, I worked for NASA developing instruments to identify atmospheric molecules from satellites.

• It was at NASA that I became an atmospheric physicist• Research on the Ozone layer in the Stratosphere. • Current research is on applying this ozone data to

climate studies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfcNRWefEEU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfcNRWefEEU

Hurricane Irene

http://abcnews.go.com/US/hurricanes/hurricane-irene-dead-million-power/story?id=14393026http://abcnews.go.com/US/hurricanes/hurricane-irene-dead-million-power/story?id=14393026

BLUE MARBLE ROTATING

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEe8vzJjj3M&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEe8vzJjj3M&feature=related

The Blue Marble

Fig. 1-1, p. 2

Weather Satellite Image, July 7, 2005

Weather vs. Climate

Weather

Instantaneous description of what the atmosphere is doing at a particular time and place

Climate

Description of what weather is usually like in a region (large or small).Not just the average weather, but a description of what the extremes are like too.

Fig. 1-2, p. 3

Different hemispheres – different weather

Why?

Different ratios of land to oceans.

Oceans tend to act like a thermostat.

Mountains cause instabilities in the air flow. Southern hemisphere is calmer.

Typical Weather Map

Mean Percentage of possible sunshine for November

Typical Climatology Map

Surface Pressure Map Jan 25

850 Mb chart for Monday Jan 25

FRONTS

• You will often hear TV meteorologists refer to cold and warm fronts when describing the weather.

• Fronts are regions where cold and warm air masses meet.

• This is the region where most of the ‘weather’ is generated.

• We identifiy four main classes of fronts, warm, cold, stationary, occluded.

• Each front has an unique symbol on weather maps.

Fig. 1-15, p. 18

Fig. 9.13

Warm Front

Fig. 9.15

Cold front

Fig. 1-17, p. 21

Weather Symbols

Detailed weather symbols

(1) Direction of arrow into the circle gives the wind direction. Number of barbs on the arrow gives the wind speed. Full barb = 10 miles per hour, half barb=5.(2) Sign, middle left, gives the type of precipitation. In the top left symbol the sign is fot thunder. In the bottom left it stands for steady rain.(3) Shading in inner circle gives the cloud fraction.(4) Top number on left is the temperature, bottom number the dew point

Weather symbols• The numbers at top right of each symbol represent the

pressure in millibars (mb)• The pressure seldom drops below 950 mb and seldom

gets above 1049 mb• In the days of teletype the object was to shorten the

amount of information sent.• So if I say the pressure was 98 then the receiver could

assume that I meant 998. And if I sent 14 then 1014 was assumed.

• To further confuse the issue it was decided to sent the tenth of a mb. So now if I sent 998 I meant 999.8. Similarly 117 means 1011.7.

Weather Forecasting• A website has been prepared to guide you

through the process of making a simple weather forecast.

• You can either go to Dr. Hudson’s web page and then click on: Forecast Checklist

• Or go to: http://www.atmos.umd.edu/~hudson/forecastchecklist2.htm