Home Page: www.env.drake.edu/courard-hauri/22/ Email: david.courard-hauri@drake.edu Phone: 515-271-3812 Fax: 515-271-3702

Meteorology ENSP-022-401 Fall, 2005 Syllabus Office: Olin 132 Office Hours: M 2-4 pm; T 10-12 am; F 11-12 am or by appointment

Overview: There are few aspects of our physical environment which affect our daily lives more directly than weather: it influences our activities, our jobs, our energy consumption, our comfort, and our health. Weather-related disasters can wreak immense destruction. In 1999 Hurricaine Floyd caused $6 billion in damages and the loss of 77 lives, while an eastern drought caused over a $1 billion in damage and killed over 250 people, and two major tornado events that year destroyed well over $2 billion in property and cost over 70 lives. Extended rains, droughts, or untimely frosts can destroy entire crops. Some of this damage and loss of life is unavoidable, but much can be prevented with proper planning and preparation, so weather prediction has become a major industry.

In ENSP 22 we will explore these and related meteorological topics. An understanding of weather requires a grounding in the physical and earth sciences that allow us to predict and analyze meteorological events. Hence, the course will introduce students to concepts such as atmospheric composition, earth's energy balance, cloud development and precipitation, photochemistry, and the movement and interaction of large air masses.

Attendance: Material presented in lectures but not in the book will appear on exams. Also, active participation in class will lead me to look kindly upon grades near cut-offs; the reverse is true as well. Announcements will at times be made in class affecting the schedule. If you are not in class and do not hear the announcement, I will not consider that to be my fault. Also, active learning exercises will only be done in class (see below). Heck, you might even learn something coming to class. Do with this information what you will.

Reading: To be completed during or before the week listed. The course text is:

Problem Sets Working through the problem sets should help you immensely in understanding the material They will be graded on a check/check plus/check minus/no credit basis. I will not provide significant (if any) feedback on individual assignments, but answers will be posted to the links below on the Wednesday after the work is due. Assignments will be due on the day indicated. Late assignments turned in before answers are posted will have a maximum score of check minus, while no assignments will be accepted after answers have been posted. Please hand in the homework in hardcopy, rather than via e-mail or the digital drop box.

Active Learning Exercises Active learning exercises will be done in class. You will be asked to turn them in at the end of class, and you will be gived a point for every one that you complete. At the end of the semester, the number of points divided by the number of possible points will be your score for this part of the course. You must be in class to hand in an active learning exercise. You may not under any circumstances ask another student to hand in your exercise, or hand in someone else's. On some days I will call out the names of everyone who has handed in an exercise, right after exercises are handed in. If you are not there when I call your name, I will drop you from the class, or give you a failing grade, at my discretion. DO NOT RUN THE RISK OF FAILING FOR ONE PIDDLY POINT!!! If you cannot come to class, just suck it up and lose the point rather than try to cheat. You have been duly warned.

These exercises are as much a measure of attendance as anything, and I will not accept make-up exercises. I understand that there are many good reasons why people cannot come to class on a given day, but this should not hurt you very much if it is only an occasional absence. If, at the end of the semester, you have missed a number of class days for excused reasons, you may turn in a note to me indicating how many exercises you missed, and any evidence you have that those days were excused absences (doctors notes, information from athletic teams, and so on), and I will take that into account when determining grades.

Academic Dishonesty: Any attempt to represent the work of others as your own, or to use outside materials in an examination is considered academic dishonesty and will be treated harshly by the professor. Be warned: if you are caught cheating on a test in any way, you will fail the course. Some students in my classes have gotten away with cheating, I am sure, while others have been failed and still others were forced to leave the University. Only a moron, if you ask me, would take that kind of risk for a stupid class, let alone have to live with the fact that they are cheaters and there really is no excuse for being a jerk no matter how busy or lazy you are. Still, statistics show that some of you will cheat, and I owe it to the honest students in the class to make every effort to find you and punish you. I also owe it to you: better to fail a class in college than to wake up when you're 50 and realize that you're a heel.

I do, however, encourage students to work on problem sets in groups. This means that all students must participate in the work, and the work should be done as a group (rather than dividing up the problems and sharing the answers, which is not helpful). If you work in a group, simply acknowledge that on your assignment. Please do turn in separate papers, as it makes it less likely that I will miss giving you credit when I alphebetize the work.

Grading: Your final grade will be made up of homework (100 pts total), active learning exercises (100 pts total), two in-class exams (100 pts each), and a final exam (150 pts).

Week One: (8/22-8/26) Chapter 1
M: Administrivia; Decide which chapters to cover
W: Properties of the Atmosphere: Temperature, Seasons, and Atmospheric Structure

Week Two: (8/29-9/2) Chapter 2
M: Properties of the Atmosphere: Moisture, Relative Humidity, and Wind.
W: Measuring Weather. Homework due: Understanding (1.1, 1.2, 1.9, 1.11, 1.19); Problem Solving (1.2, 1.4); Website: (1.1, 2.6, 2.7) (note that the last two are from Chapter 2)

Week Three: (9/5-9/9) Chapters 3 and 4
M: No Class: Memorial Day
W: Maps and Weather Forecasting with Computers

Week Four: (9/12-9/16) Chapter 5
M: Latent Heat and the Lapse Rate.
W: Atmospheric Stability. Homework due: Understanding: (3.1, 3.13, 4.10, 4.22, 5.1, 5.3, 5.5, 5.8, 5.14); Problem Solving (3.2, 4.1, 5.2); Website: (3.5a, 3.5b, 4.1, 4.5)

Week Five: (9/19-9/23)
M: Review/Catch Up.
W: Exam 1. Study Guide.

Week Six: (9/26-9/30) Chapter 6
M: Pressure/Gradient and Coriolis "Force".
W: Geostrophic Winds and Jet Streams.

Week Seven: (10/3-10/7) Chapter 7
M: Pressure at Various Heights.
W: Formation of Highs and Lows.

Week Eight: (10/10-10/14) Chapter 8
M: Airmasses and Fronts. Homework Due: Understanding (6.1, 6.5, 6.12, 6.16, 7.1, 7.6, 7.13, 7.16, 7.17, 7.20, 7.21); Problem Solving: (6.2, 6.4, 7.2)
W: Frontal Movement.

Week Nine: (10/17-10/21) Chapter 9
M: No Class: Fall Break.
W: Extratropical Cyclones: Continental.

Week Ten: (10/24-10/28) Chapters 10 and 11
M: Extratropical Cyclones: Coastal.
W: Freezing Precipitation. Homework Due: Understanding (8.1, 8.2, 8.10, 9.3, 9.9, 10.1, 10.4, 10.25, 11.3, 11.6, 11.16, 11.20); Problem Solving: (8.1, 8.2, 9.1, 9.4, 10.1)

Week Eleven: (10/31-11/4)
M: Review/Catch-Up
W: Exam 2. Study Guide.

Week Twelve: (11/7-11/11) Chapter 17
M: Thunderstorm Formation.
W: Causes of Damaging Thunderstorms.

Week Thirteen: (11/14-11/18) Chapter 18
M: Tornado Formation.
W: Tornado Damage and Forecasting.Homework Due: Understanding (17.1, 17.2, 17.7, 17.10, 17.24, 17.28, 18.1, 18.3, 18.7, 18.11, 18.15, 18.18, 18.24, 18.25) Problem Solving (18.3)

Week Fourteen: (11/21-11/25) Chapter 22
M: El Nino/ENSO
W: No Class: Thanksgiving Break.

Week Fifteen: (11/28-12/2) Chapters 19 and 20
M: Hail.
W: Lightning.

Week Sixteen: (12/5-12/9)
M: Catch-Up/Summary.
W: Review. Homework Due: Understanding (19.1, 19.7, 19.13, 19.20, 20.3, 20.4, 20.7, 20.8, 20.9, 20.14, 20.15, 20.19, 20.20, 22.3, 22.10, 22.11, 22.18, 22.20) Problem Solving (22.3)

FINAL EXAM: Thursday, December 15 from 12:00-1:50 pm

Dr. David Courard-Hauri Environmental Science and Policy Program Drake University Phone: 515-271-3812 Fax: 515-271-3702 Email: david.couard-hauri@drake.edu