AOS1/1L
Climate Change: From Puzzles to Policy
Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Optional Laboratory, one hour. Overview of fundamentals of Earth's climate, including greenhouse effect, water and chemical cycles, outstanding features of atmospheric and ocean circulation, and feedback between different system components. Exciting and contentious scientific puzzles of climate system, including causes of ice ages, greenhouse warming, and El Niño. Importance of climate science and prediction to society, with emphasis on science's role in identifying, qualifying, and solving environmental problems such as ozone hole and greenhouse warming. P/NP or letter grading. Enforced corequisite for lab: course 1.
AOS3/3L
Introduction to Atmospheric Environment
Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Optional Laboratory, one hour. Nature and causes of weather phenomena, including atmospheric circulation, clouds and storms, lightning and precipitation, fronts and cyclones, and tornadoes and hurricanes. Atmospheric radiation, global warming, and greenhouse effect. P/NP or letter grading. Enforced corequisite for lab: course 3.
AOS103
Physical Oceanography
Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Requisite: Mathematics 3B or 31B. Introductory course for physical sciences, life sciences, or engineering majors interested in environmental issues. Observations of temperature, salinity, density, and currents. Methods. Wind-driven and geostrophic currents. California Current and Gulf Stream. Internal waves. Surface waves and tides. Air/sea interactions. Coastal upwelling. Biological/physical interactions. El Niño. Role of ocean in climate and global change. Letter grading.
AOS105/EEB139
Introduction to Chemical Oceanography
Lecture three hours. Requisite none. Introductory course for physical sciences, life sciences, or engineering majors interested in the oceanic environment. The chemical composition of the oceans and the nature of the physical, chemical, and biological processes governing this composition in the past and present. The cycles of major and minor oceanic constituents, with focus on those that are most important for life, i.e. carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, silicon, and oxygen. Processes investigated are primary production, export production, remineralization, diagenesis, air-sea gas exchange. Role of ocean biogeochemical cycles for climate. Letter grading.