METR 215 Advanced Physical Meteorology- Lecture 1: Green-sheet and Introduction

Professor Menglin Susan JinSan Jose State University, Department of Meteorology and Climate Science

www.met.sjsu.edu/~jin

Outline of today’s lecture

1. Introduction and Welcome2. Discussion on the “greensheet”3. Learning Contract4. First glance on class roadmap5. Survey

New Class Schedule

For greensheet, class ppt notes, homework, reading materials

http://www.met.sjsu.edu/~jin/METR215.htm

About Professor

1.

2. to be an effective teacher

3.

www.met.sjsu.edu/~jin

Research projects: funded by NASA, NSF, Department of DefenseOn land surface climate change, urbanization, remote sensing

20 leading author papers on top journals

Goal of METR215METR215 discusses the fundamentals of

Thermodynamics Cloud microphysics

Aerosol-cloud interactionAtmospheric Electricity

ObservationsImportant papers

Content (see greensheet schedule)Part 1: Thermodynamics 1. The Gas Laws 2. The Hydrostatic Equation 3. The First Law of Thermodynamics 4. Adiabatic Processes 5. Water Vapor in Air 6. Static Stability 7. The Second Law of Thermodynamics Part 2: CLOUD Macrophysics and Microphysics

Cloud Modeling Part 3: Atmospheric Aerosols

Part 4. Lightning and Atmospheric Electricity

Book and Reading:

•1988 A Short Course in Cloud Physics by Rogers and Yau (Required)

•2006 Wallace and Hobbs Atmospheric Science (Recommended)

• more materials will be assigned on webpage/homework/class

Lecture Hour:

TTh 10:30 AM - 11:45 AM (to be changed!)Place: DH615

Office Hour: 10:30 PM‐11:30 PM, Wednesday12:00-13:00 Tuesday

Place: MSJ’s Office (DH621)

METR215

•I will meet with you for extra office hour whenever you need. •send email for appointment.

Homework: 20%Midterm Exam 1: 15%Midterm Exam 2: 15%Class Participation 5%Research Project: 20%

Final Exam: 25%Scale: 90+ A, 80’s B, 70’s C, 60’s D, <60 F

Homework will be assigned on Tuesdays in class collected in discussions on two weeks later.

Learning Contract

• Instructor– On time and prepared.– Answers questions.– Approachable and friendly.– Fair with assignments and grades.– Genuinely concerned about your learning and

intellectual development.

Learning Contract• Students

– Make every effort to arrive on time; and if late, enter class quietly.

– Preserve a good classroom learning environment by a) refraining from talking when other people

are talking b) turning off cell phones.

– Be courteous to other students and the instructor.– Aware that learning is primarily their responsibility.– Aware of universities policy on academic integrity

and pledge to abide by them at all times. – Have read and understand what plagiarism is and

know how to cite sources properly.

Academic Integrity• Integrity of university, its courses and

degrees relies on academic standards.• Cheating:

– Copying from another’s test, cheatsheet etc.– Sitting an exam by, or as, a surrogate.– Submitting work for another

• Plagiarism:– Representing the work of another as one’s own

(without giving appropriate credit)

Plagiarism• Judicial Affairs

http://sa.sjsu.edu/judicial_affairs/index.html

• Look at the Student Code of Conduct

• Read through SJSU library site on Plagiarismhttp://www.sjlibrary.org/services/literacy/info_comp/plagiarism.htm

• http://turnitin.com/

GreenSheet (see handout)

• Homework turn-in on time, will be stated in the homework, in general, 1 week after the assignment

• Class Participation

• Research Project

• Final grade

Let’s see where this class stands in the big picture….

.

One World

Atmosphere Composition and Structure

Table 1: Composition of the Atmosphere

GasPercentage by Volume

Nitrogen 78.08

Oxygen 20.95

Argon 0.93

Trace GasesCarbon dioxide 0.038Methane 0.00017Ozone 0.000004Chlorofluorocarbons 0.00000002Water vapor Highly variable

(0-4%)

Vertical Layers of the Lower Atmosphere

Pressure in the Atmosphere

•Atmospheric pressure can be imagined as the weight of the overlying column of air. •pressure decreases exponentially with altitude.

•but 80 percent of the atmosphere’s mass is contained within the 18 km closest to the surface.

•measured in millibars (mb)

•At sea level, pressure ranges from about 960 to 1,050 mb, with an average of 1,013 mb.

Observed temperature changes

1992-93Cooling due toMt. Pinatubo

Warming due to El Niño

Cooling due to La Niño

Although both nitrogen and oxygen are essential to human life on the planet, they have little effect on weather and other atmospheric processes.

The variable components, which make up far less than 1 percent of the atmosphere, have a much greater influence on both short-term weather and long-term climate. For example, variations in water vapor in the atmosphere are familiar to us as relative humidity.

Water vapor, CO2, CH4, N2O, and SO2 all have an important property: they absorb heat emitted by the earth and thus warm the atmosphere, creating what we call the "greenhouse effect." Without these so-called greenhouse gases, the surface of the earth would be about 30 degrees Celsius cooler - too cold for life to exist as we know it.

Global warming, on the other hand, is a separate process that can be caused by increased amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

1. Evaporation, transpiration (plants)

2. Atmospheric transport (vapor)

3. Condensation (liquid water, ice)

4. Precipitation

5. Surface transport (continental rivers, aquifers and ocean currents)

Earth’s Hydrological Cycle - Schematic

PHYS 622 - Clouds, spring ‘04, lect. 1, Platnick

Clouds - The “Wet” Aerosol

• A cloud definition: visible suspension of water and/or ice particles in the atmosphere.

– Key word is visible, but not quantitative. Example, “sub-visual cirrus” (observed through non-visible, non-passive sensors/imagers or lidars).

• Cloud physics: branch of physical meteorology, study of cloud formation (macrophysical & microphysical), lifecycles, precipitation, radiation, etc.

– Macrophysical: larger scale spatial information, total/column water amounts, etc.

– Microphysical: thermodynamic phase, size distribution, ice particle shape (habit), water content, etc.

PHYS 622 - Clouds, spring ‘04, lect. 1, Platnick

Why Clouds?• Weather

– Dynamics: Latent heat and/or radiative effects impacting atmospheric stability/instability, atmospheric heating/cooling

– Radiation (e.g., surface heating)

• Chemical processes

• Climate– General circulation– Hydrological cycle– Radiation budget

Clouds are a critical component of climate models (for reasons cited above) and therefore also to climate change studies

• Not well-represented in climate models• Climate change: cloud-climate feedback, cloud-aerosol

interactions (to be discussed), etc.

PHYS 622 - Clouds, spring ‘04, lect. 1, Platnick

PHYS 622 - Clouds, spring ‘04, lect. 1, Platnick

Earth’s Radiation Budget - Schematic

PHYS 622 - Clouds, spring ‘04, lect. 1, Platnick

PHYS 622 - Clouds, spring ‘04, lect. 1, Platnick

PHYS 622 - Clouds, spring ‘04, lect. 1, Platnick

Cloud-aerosol interactions ex.: ship tracks (27 Jan. 2003, N. Atlantic)

MODIS (MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer)

Cold front - steep frontal slopes

Warm front - shallow frontal slopes

Convective development (mesoscale, local)

Synoptic development

PHYS 622 - Clouds, spring ‘04, lect. 1, Platnick

Review of Basic Concepts –see handout

• System• Surroundings• Open system • Close system• Property of System• State of System • Extensive property• Intensive property• Homogeneous system• Heterogeneous system• Equilibrium