Undergraduate Course: Introduction to Three Dimensional Climate Modelling (ENVI11002)
Course Outline
| School | School of Geosciences |
College | College of Science and Engineering |
| Course type | Standard |
Availability | Available to all students |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Year 5 Undergraduate) |
Credits | 10 |
| Home subject area | Meteorology |
Other subject area | Postgraduate Courses (School of GeoSciences) |
| Course website |
None |
Taught in Gaelic? | No |
| Course description | The aim of the course is to provide a theoretical and practical introduction to three dimensional climate modelling. This will allow students to have an appreciation of the strengths and weaknesses of climate models and for some to subsequently carry out projects which make use of climate models. |
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | Students MUST also take:
Atmospheric Dynamics (METE10001)
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| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | Students are strongly recommended to have some experience with programming computers prior to the course. |
| Additional Costs | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| Displayed in Visiting Students Prospectus? | No |
Course Delivery Information
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| Delivery period: 2011/12 Semester 1, Available to all students (SV1)
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WebCT enabled: Yes |
Quota: 0 |
| Location |
Activity |
Description |
Weeks |
Monday |
Tuesday |
Wednesday |
Thursday |
Friday |
| No Classes have been defined for this Course |
| First Class |
First class information not currently available |
| No Exam Information |
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
At the end of the course students should:
1) Have a theoretical understanding of the principals underlying three dimensional climate models
2) Have a theoretical understanding of how climate models work.
3) Have a practical understanding of how to run a climate model
4) Have a practical understanding of how to analyse climate model output
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Assessment Information
Assessment (50%) will be by an extended group exercise where the students as a group set up, run and analyse a set of climate model experiments to answer some specific issue. Students will be told what the exercise will be at the beginning of the course and be provided with a set of roles to take. CO will then distribute students across 1-3 groups aiming for each group to be 3-5 students. Students may express a preference to work with specific other students and the CO will keep this in mind when assembling groups. The assessment will be by a poster + question & answer session of the student team. All students should have made a roughly equal contribution and to show this each individual member should keep a contemporaneous diary (via a wiki) showing what they contributed to the work. Students will be allowed to recommend, with a reasoned case, that particular students should get more marks while other students should get less marks with the total adding to zero. This (and the CO&©s assessment of each students contribution) will then be used to give each individual student a mark for the group work.
The actual exercise will take place in one week (somewhere from week 7 to week 9) with each student expected to spend about 15 hours over the week working on the exercise. Aim will be to provide each group with a space where results can be left and the students can work individually and together as necessary. CO will visit each group once a day to get briefing on how work is going and make some suggestions as to what group could do next.
Example exercises might be:
1) How predictable is the simulated climate 10 years in advance given near-perfect knowledge of the state of the climate system?
2) Is an ensemble of climate models consistent with observations?
3) How predictable is the atmospheric response to Sea Surface Temperatures?
4) What difference does model resolution make?
For these exercises some code will be provided.
Assessment (50%) of the individual students understanding will be by a series of short answer questions. Chose two out of three questions in 2 hours in an exam.
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Special Arrangements
| None |
Additional Information
| Academic description |
The course will be run as a set of guiding readings largely of parts of the textbook &«Introduction to Three Dimensional Climate Modelling&ª by Washington and Parkinson + other books. There will be one 1-hour seminar/week for 5 weeks. The aim of the seminars will be for the students to demonstrate they have understood the previous week&©s readings and to be given guidance for readings for the following week.
Each session (50 mins) would consist of a discussion about previous set readings (30 mins) where students would raise issues that they did not understand while academic would try to clarify those issues. The remaining 20 mins would be used to set out key ideas in next set of readings. Students would be expected to spend 9 hours/week working through readings; doing problems etc.
The course functions on the assumption that level 11 students are mature enough to be self-learners. So students will be expected, perhaps with some guidance, to seek out additional material and read some literature.
To supplement the theoretical study practical training in how to run the unified model (or other models). (Two ½ day labs to be arranged in weeks 4-6 as appropriate). Two subsequent sessions (also two ½ day labs) will give the students practical training in how to analyse the Unified Model $ú a climate model (or other models as time develops). Section numbers below refer to Introduction to Three Dimensional Climate Modelling.
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| Syllabus |
5 Sessions (Block 1):
Session 1: Introduction.
Course aims.
Climate System $ú land and Ocean. (section 2.1, 2.2, 2.4.1-2.4.4)
Session 2: Equations of motion for the Atmosphere & the Oceans $ú also with help from Vallis book. (Students who have not studied Atmospheric Dynamics would find this session hard)
Governing Equations for the Atmosphere sections 3.1-3.3 (pp 49-69)
Governing equations for the Ocean (3.8.1 & 3.8.3-3.8.4)
Session 3: Numerical solutions & the need for parameterisation
Grid-point methods (Sections 4.1 & 4.2)
Semi-Lagrangian methods for advection. (4.7)
Spectral Methods (4.4 & 4.5)
Session 4: Parameterisation
Radiation (doing Physics of Climate would help) (3.6.1-3.6.5)
Clouds (3.6.6.-3.6.9)
Ocean Eddies (3.8.4)
Session 5: Uses for Climate Models.
Sensitivity to Initial Conditions
Simulations of Present Climate (5.1, 5.2, 5.5)
Using Models to understand possible future climates (6.6 & 6.10)
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| Transferable skills |
Not entered |
| Reading list |
Not entered |
| Study Abroad |
Not entered |
| Study Pattern |
See above. |
| Keywords | Climate Modelling |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Prof Simon Tett
Tel:
Email: Simon.Tett@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Emma Latto
Tel: (0131 6)50 8510
Email: emma.latto@ed.ac.uk |
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© Copyright 2011 The University of Edinburgh - 16 January 2012 6:08 am
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