When you click the Amazon logo to the left of any citation and purchase the book (or other media) from Amazon.com, MIT OpenCourseWare will receive up to 10% of this purchase and any other purchases you make during that visit. This will not increase the cost of your purchase. Links provided are to the US Amazon site, but you can also support OCW through Amazon sites in other regions. Learn more.

Course Meeting Times

Lectures: 2 sessions / week, 1.5 hours / session

Course Description

This course examines diagnostic studies of the Earth's atmosphere and discusses their implications for the theory of the structure and general circulation of the Earth's atmosphere. Includes some discussion of the validation and use of general circulation models as atmospheric analogs.

Prerequisites

Quasi-balanced Circulations in Oceans and Atmospheres (12.803) or Dynamics of the Atmosphere (12.810).

Topics

1. Introduction
2. Analysis Techniques
3. The Angular Momentum and Kinetic Energy Budgets
4. The Water Vapor Budget
5. The Heat Budget
6. Spectral Analysis
7. Forcing of the Zonal Mean Circulations
8. The Energy Cycle
9. Numerical Models

Texts

Lorenz, E. N. "The Nature and Theory of the General Circulation of the Atmosphere." Geneva: World Meteorological Organization Publication 218 (1967): 161.

Peixoto, J. P., and A. H. Oort. Physics of Climate. New York, NY: Springer, 1992. ISBN: 9780883187128.

Exams and Term Paper

There will be a mid-term exam, an end-of-term exam, and a term paper.

Grading