Due April 13

Topic: Asia

1. Brief Encyclopedia of Climatology article on "Climate of Asia" 

2. Riley & Spolton (1981) World Weather and Climate, 2nd edition, Part 2 Studies in Synoptic Meterology  Read the following sections: Chapter  9 (section on Eurasia, pp 65-70), Chapter 10 (on High Latitude Areas, pp 77-81)  & Chapter 7 (section on Indian Subcontinent) 

3.  Electronic Atlas for Europe write-up

4. Prepare a short overview of your plans for your paper that includes:  your proposed title, a statement of the key problem or question you are exploring, and an annotated outline of how you see your paper coming together.  I will review these and offer suggestions, possible references, etc.

Topic: Europe

1. Brief Encyclopedia of Climatology article on "Climate of Europe" 

2. Riley & Spolton (1981) World Weather and Climate, 2nd edition, Part 2 Studies in Synoptic Meterology  Read the following sections:  Chapter 8 (sections on Western Europe & the Mediterranean, pp 47-59)

3.  Electronic Atlas for Africa write-up

Topic: Africa

1. Brief Encyclopedia of Climatology article on "Climate of Africa" 

2. Riley & Spolton (1981) World Weather and Climate, 2nd edition, Part 2 Studies in Synoptic Meterology  Read the following sections:  Chapter 7 (section on West Africa, pp 36--37), Chapter 11 (section on Africa and the Near East, pp 82-86)

3. Electronic Atlas for S. America write-up

(a) In class before Spring Break we did the following:   Using the Reanalysis Website, create a map (or maps) that investigates one of the features related to the climate of South America.  You will already have this deposited in your own folder in our  geog531001 ILC server space.

(b) Now, take the work you did in class and paste the map(s) into a Word document and type in a paragraph explaining what "feature/process" you explored with your map and what you discovered about it (e.g., "the feature looks just like the lecture/textbook figure in my Reanalysis map;"  the feature looks similar to the textbook explanation when plotted for the 1950s, but not for the 1980s;"  "I found that the Pacific STH isn't as positionally stable as the textbooks claim -- see my sea level pressure maps for JJA and DJF." etc. etc.

(c) Name your document according to this convention:  yourlastname.SA.doc and using SSH transfer, deposit it in our geog531001 ILC server space in the1. ELECTRONIC ATLASES folder under  S.America.   We'll go over these together in class before we start in on Africa.
 

Topic:  South America

1.Very brief Encyclopedia of Climatology article on "Climate of South America" 

2. Riley & Spolton (1981) World Weather and Climate, 2nd edition, Part 2 Studies in Synoptic Meterology  Read the following sections:  Chapter 6 (pp 30-36), Chapter 8 (section on the Southern Hemisphere, pp 61-62) & Chapter 11 (section on Cold-water Coasts, pp 85-86) 
[NOTE:  ignore earlier post that included reading Chapter 13 (pp 96-112) -- you already read that chaater in Part III  on Climate Regions!]

3.  Come to class with some ideas on what your term paper will be in -- I'll give guidelines and suggest possibilities.

Topic:  North America

1. Encyclopedia of Climatology article on "Climate of North America"

2. Riley & Spolton (1981) World Weather and Climate, 2nd edition, Part 2 Studies in Synoptic Meterology  Read the following sections:   Chapter 7 (section on Tropical Cyclones, pp 43-47), Chapter 8 (section on Pacific North America, pp 59-61), Chapter  9 (section on North America, pp 70-77) and Chapter 12 (on Mountain Areas, pp 87-95).

3.  Hirschboeck 1991 "Climate and Floods" article (NOTE: you will receive your own paper copy  in class)

Topic: Teleconnections & Indices of Circulation Modes that Impact Climate (Part II)

You should make correlation field maps (by seasons or key months) of your index and various Class A & B variables (esp. geopotential height, air temperature, sea level pressure, relative humidity or specific humidity, etc.)  [NOTE:  you may find that occasionally you will get error messages because a variable is only available under certain conditions.]

Put all this together to prepare a short (6-8 minute) report to the rest of the class about your index. You should put the maps and/or figures you want to display in the SSH folder that I've set up with your name on it.   You will be expanding this into a written paper assignment later, but for next week's class, what you need is a basic introduction/outline of key things that are important about your index and maps that illustrate them.

2.  To help you place your index in the context of other global teleconnections, also read these articles which I mentioned in class:

Wallace & Gutzler (1981) Teleconnections in the Geopotential Height Field during the Northern Hemisphere Winter.  Monthly Weather Review 109: 784-812.

Mo & Livezey (1986) Tropical-Extratropical Geopotnetial Height Teleconnections during the Northern Hemisphere Winter. Monthly Weather Review 114: 2488-2515.

Mo (1986) Quasi-Stationary States in the Southern Hemisphere. Monthly Weather Review 114: 808-823.

and here's one more to look at that looks at possible causal mechanisms of the Southern Hemisphere wave pattern:

Kalnay, Mo & Paegle (1986) Large-Amplitude, Short-Scale Stationary Rossby Waves in the Southern Hemisphere: Observations and Mechanistic Experiments to Determine their Origin.  Monthly Weather Review 114: 252-275.

Topic: Teleconnections & Indices of Circulation Modes that Impact Climate (Part I)

(plus more on Synoptic Climatology)

 [For review/background read on synoptic-scale circulation see Chapter 3 on "General Circulation" in Riley & Spolton (1981) World Weather and Climate, 2nd edition, Part 1 General Meteorology, Chapts 1 - 5 ]

2.  On  The Climate Prediction Center's Teleconnection Pages.  Read the INTRODUCTION:  http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/teledoc/teleintro.html  and also read the information on ALL links on this page to familiarize yourself with the indices and other related sites.

3.  Read:  Barnston and Livezey  (1987)  Classification, seasonality and persistence of low-frequency atmospheric circulation patterns. Mon. Wea. Rev., 115, 1083-1126.

4.  Also visit the CLIMATE INDICES SITE  & Northern Hemisphere Teleconnections Site to continue to familiarize yourself with various indices and to help you select two indices that you will investigate in detail for Exercise #4.
 

Topic:  Hypothetical Continent, Global Climate Regions, Climate Classification Systems

2. For next week & Exercise #2 read:  Riley & Spolton (1981) World Weather and Climate, 2nd edition, Part 3 Climatology, Chapt 13 Climatic regions (pp 96-112)  Here's a large colored map of Trewartha's Climate Regions

3.  Complete Exercise #2  (MS Word -- you can type your answers right in it!)  (Do Questions # 1 - 4 only; we'll do #5 & #6 together in class).

4.  CLIMATE INDICES SITE  & Northern Hemisphere Teleconnections Site (review these to decide which index you want to look at)

Topic:  Humidity, Precipitation, Ocean Circulation

2. Read:
Wendland & Bryson, 1981, Northern Hemisphere Airstream Regions [PDF file]
Wendland & McDonald, 1986, Southern Hemisphere Airstream Climatology [PDF file]

Topic: Pressure, Winds, General Circulation

2. Complete Exercise #1 Part B (if needed)

3.  Read Lorenz, E.N. (1966) The Circulation of the Atmosphere: American Scientist, 54:4, p 402-420 (a classic, readable overview of the general circulation of the atmosphere from one of the great atmospheric scientists of the 20th century.  NOTE: the section on numerical weather simulation beginning on p 416 is out of date.)      

4.Answer the Question for  Exercise #1 (Part C)

Due Jan 19th

Topic:  Insolation, Energy Balance, Temperature

1.     Sign up for a free UA Net Library account if you don't already have one.

2.    Review basic concepts of radiation and  insolation in Chapter 3 "Radiation Conditions in the Low Latitudes" in  the  E-book:  Tropical Climatology, An Introduction to the Climates of the Low Latitudes .  Here's a password-protected  PDF file of Chapter 3 (so you don't have to read the E-book version)

3.  Complete Exercise #1 (Part A) we'll work on Part B in class together on the 19th.

4 . To get ready for doing Part B of Exercise #1, read the following handouts and try making some maps:  Overview of the NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis Dataset (pdf file) &   Introduction to Using the NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis Dataset (pdf file)