Physical Climatology - GEO 387H

Course Information:
Instructor: Dr. Zong-Liang Yang
Course: GEO 387H (#55210) / GEO 377P (#55110)
Website: http://www.geo.utexas.edu/courses/387h

This course will be offered the first-time in the fall and listed as an undergraduate/graduate course (GEO 377P, Unique# 55110 and GEO 387H, Unique #55210). It was renamed from Hydroclimatology (GEO 387H) (http://www.geo.utexas.edu/courses/387h/indexHYDROCLIM.htm), which was taught in springs of 2002-04.

Course Description:
This course investigates the nature of Earth's climate and examines the processes that maintain our climate system based on physical principles. The class is concerned primarily with the global climate and its geographic variation on scales of hundreds to thousands of kilometers. Topics include the energy balance, the hydrologic cycle, general circulation of the atmosphere, general circulation of the oceans, how they all interact and vary at various spatial and temporal scales, and regional to global scale climate modeling. The hydrologic cycle topic covers processes and modeling of surface hydrology or land surface-atmosphere interactions. Human-induced modifications to the climate system, such as urbanization, anthropogenic global warming, desertification, and tropical deforestation, are discussed. Descriptive, analytical, programming, and modeling skills will be taught as well.