Study of the major components of Earth's climate system and climate change history. Discussion of 21st century climate change prediction, mitigation and adaptation efforts.

What are weather and climate? Most people think they know but if you ask people to explain the differences and similarities you're bound to get a range of answers. Weather affects not just our daily activities but other important aspects of society such as transportation, commerce, security and agriculture. Most people understand what weather is to some extent. Climate and climate change are concepts that evoke strong emotional responses from people but are less well understood. In this class, students examine fundamental issues such as the greenhouse effect, severe weather, and global weather patterns and how they relate to a changing climate. Instruction in the lectures will provide the basic knowledge needed to understand these issues. In the discussion sections, students will be divided into groups to address the implications of these topics through group projects.

Laboratory exercises to supplement AOSC200, including weather observations, weather map analysis, forecasting practice and climate modeling.

A comprehensive introduction to scientific computation and visualization techniques with Python applied to data intensive questions in the Natural Sciences. The class emphasizes real-world applications, providing students with essential hands-on experience using Python for data analysis and visualization, developing analytical skills for observational and modeling data, and performing virtual experiments to distinguish data contributing factors. Students will gain an understanding of the scientific data issues including: signal vs noise, trend vs periodicity, mean vs extreme changes, and accuracy vs uncertainty. Students will gain extensive experience using command line linux. Skills including local and remote file transfer and synchronization, file and directory permission, utilities for diagnosing performance issues, and data compression.

Have you ever pondered the real-world relevance of concepts learned in your math and physics courses? This course is designed to bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge and practical application in the atmospheric, oceanic, and climate sciences. Engage with foundational concepts from calculus and physics, and discover their direct applications through core mathematical methods used to analyze the complex systems of our planet. By consistently motivating each mathematical concept with tangible examples from atmosphere and ocean dynamics, cloud and precipitation physics, radiative transfer and remote sensing, atmospheric chemistry and air quality, and climate science, this course aims to enhance your problem-solving skills and analytical abilities, preparing you for advanced coursework, particularly in fluid dynamics. You will develop your ability not only to apply mathematical techniques to organize and manipulate equations, but also to interpret the physical meaning of the results and determine which method a problem calls for. It fosters motivation to pursue your math and physics sequences with renewed enthusiasm, equipped with a clearer understanding of their significance in your degree., , By the end of this course, you will be able to recognize and interpret mathematical symbols and physical terms prevalent in governing equations. You will confidently apply mathematical methods--including trigonometry, vectors and operators, integration, differentiation and linearization, dimensional and scale analysis, and linear algebra--to solve problems in atmospheric, oceanic, and climate science. You will also build a reference guide to support problem solving throughout the course and as you progress in the major. This course provides a robust foundation, empowering you to tackle upper-level coursework.

Climate change is the greatest challenge humanity faces in the 21st century. Global mean surface temperature has increased by 1.2C since the beginning of industrialization, driven by fossil fuel burning and land use change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has proposed to limit global warming to within 1.5-2C, beyond which many tipping points in the Earth system would be reached and cause irreversible damages. This course will examine potential solutions to mitigate climate change.

Introduction of the earth and global climate systems and their major components: atmosphere, land, ocean, biosphere and cryosphere. Key processes governing the function of the earth's climate: Global energy balance and water cycle, climate dynamics (general circulation of the atmosphere and ocean) and climate physics (aerosol, cloud and rain), as well as climate variability and climate changes. Phenomena resulting from this coupled system including El Nino-Southern Oscillation, monsoons, and the hydrological cycle will be discussed, with a focus on how the Earth System responds to global warming.

Many of the properties of the atmosphere, ocean, and land surface are most easily observed from satellite remote sensing. This course will provide students with a hands-on introduction to a variety of passive and active sensing techniques and sensors observing our changing environment. Topics include: orbital dynamics and electromagnetic properties of the atmosphere and surface; atmospheric emission characteristics and scattering; chemical composition and spectroscopy; temperature retrievals; detection and retrieval of aerosol, cloud and rain; ocean surface properties; sea surface temperature and color; active sensing of wind stress, sea level, and internal waves; time-dependent gravity; properties of vegetation and ice.

Equations of motion and their approximation, scale analysis for the atmosphere and the ocean. Conservation properties. Fluid motion in the atmosphere and oceans. Geostrophic/balanced and ageostrphic/unbalanced motion. Circulation, vorticity, and potential vorticity. Introduction to the boundary layer.

The effects of human activity on atmospheric composition, focused on global warming, the carbon cycle, air pollution, and the ozone layer. Fundamentals of atmospheric and oceanic chemistry (spectroscopy, kinetics, isotopic analysis, and biogeochemical cycling of GHGs) are related to the modern understanding of climate change, air quality, ozone depletion, based on resources such as satellite missions, field campaigns, lab studies, and scientific assessment reports. We also examine how society's future energy needs could be met in a manner with less impact on atmospheric composition than the present heavy reliance on combustion of fossil fuels.

Introduction to the processes by which climate varies, the paleoclimate record, and projections of climate change into the 21st century, including discussion of climate sensitivity to external radiative forcing.

A comprehensive introductory course designed to prepare undergraduate and graduate students for applying machine learning techniques to solve real-world problems in Earth science. It emphasizes practical solution implementation, providing students with essential hands-on experience using the most popular open-source analytics tools based on Python, a general-purpose programming language. The course works through all steps in machine learning, from problem specification, data analytics to analytical solution, and applies advanced statistical and analytical algorithms to uncover hidden data relationships and transform them into predictive understanding or decision support. The topics covered include: Python programming, SciPy and Scikit-learn utility, data engineering, visualization, classifiers, regression models, canonical correlation analysis, structural equation models, decision trees, random forests, boosting machines, support vector machines, clustering, dimensionality reduction, principal component analysis, and neural networks.

Survey a broad range of mesoscale meteorological features with emphasis on convection and associated phenomena. Define the mesoscale and understand its underlying principles; Introduce non-convective circulations and their importance for weather forecasting; Understand the precursors and occurrence of deep moist convection.

Exposure to a wide range of contemporary topics in atmospheric, oceanic, and climate sciences, to foster research interests and promote critical thinking through the weekly AOSC departmental seminar series.

Survey a broad range of mesoscale meteorological features with emphasis on convection and associated phenomena. Define the mesoscale and understand its underlying principles; Introduce non-convective circulations and their importance for weather forecasting; Understand the precursors and occurrence of deep moist convection.

Waves and instabilities in the atmosphere and the ocean. Gravity, Rossby, coastal and equatorial waves. Flow over topography. Dynamic instabilities including barotropic, baroclinic, inertial, and instabilities of the coupled ocean-atmosphere system. Stationary waves and multiple equilibria.

The general circulation of the atmosphere and oceans, historical perspective, observations, and conceptual models; wind-driven and thermohaline circulation of the oceans. Seasonal cycle and monsoon circulations; interannual to interdecadal climate variability; climate change.

Spectroscopy; basic concepts in radiative transfer and atmospheric chemistry; photolysis rates for atmospheric molecules.

Fundamentals of radiative transfer concepts, theories and models pertinent to remote sensing. Satellite platforms, sensors and systems used for operation and research in atmospheric remote sensing. Concepts and technologies of passive and active remote sensing. Remote sensing methods and products of atmospheric constituents, aerosol, cloud, precipitation, temperature and water vapor profiles, precipitation in liquid and ice forms, radiation budget, and remote sensing application in data assimilation for numerical weather forecast (NWP); use of atmospheric remote sensing products for development of global climate model (GCM).

The effects of human activity on atmospheric composition, focused on global warming, the carbon cycle, air pollution, and the ozone layer. Fundamentals of atmosphereic chemistry (spectroscopy, kinetics, isotopic analysis, and biogeochemical cycles) are related to the modern understanding of climate change, air quality, and ozone depletion, based on resources such as satellite missions, field campaigns, and scientific assessments published by international agencies. We also examine how society's energy needs could be met, in the future, in a manner with less impact on atmospheric composition than the present heavy reliance on combusion of fossil fuels.

A comprehensive introductory course designed to prepare undergraduate and graduate students for applying machine learning techniques to solve real-world problems in Earth science. It emphasizes practical solution implementation, providing students with essential hands-on experience using the most popular open-source analytics tools based on Python, a general-purpose programming language. The course works through all steps in machine learning, from problem specification, data analytics to analytical solution, and applies advanced statistical and analytical algorithms to uncover hidden data relationships and transform them into predictive understanding or decision support. The topics covered include: Python programming, SciPy and Scikit-learn utility, data engineering, visualization, classifiers, regression models, canonical correlation analysis, structural equation models, decision trees, random forests, boosting machines, support vector machines, clustering, dimensionality reduction, principal component analysis, and neural networks.