Courses

PHYS 335 – Physics and Chemistry of the Atmosphere (3 credits)

Instructor: Dr. Brent McBride/ESI and Dr. Qianqian Song/GESTAR-II

Summary: A first course in the physical and chemical principles that led to the formation of the Earth’s atmosphere, its structure and processes. Atmospheric composition and structure. Concepts of pressure, density, thermodynamics and radiative energy balance. Atmospheric motions and major circulations. Major chemical cycles in the atmosphere and elementary atmospheric chemical reactions. Modifications of the atmospheric chemical structure – the greenhouse effect, acid rain and toxic chemicals. Air pollution meteorology. Prerequisite: PHYS 122 or PHYS 122H with a grade of ‘C’ or better.

Syllabus

Online textbooks (free): Atmospheric Science by John Wallace and Peter Hobbs (2nd Ed.), Practical Meteorology: An Algebra-based Survey of Atmospheric Science by R. Stull, and Introduction to Atmospheric Chemistry by Daniel J. Jacob

In prior semesters, this course was taught by ESI faculty Dr. Xiaoguang (Richard) Xu and Dr. Lorraine Remer.

The following courses may require pre-requisites.

Geography and Environmental Systems (GES)

Undergraduate

Please see the Earth and Atmospheric Science track course catalog.

Graduate

610 – Atmospheric Science

668 – Building Spatial Datasets

680 – Introduction to Satellite Image Analysis

681 – Remote Sensing of Environment

Please see the full graduate catalog for course summaries.

 

Physics

Undergraduate

122 – Introductory Physics II

220 – Introduction to Computational Physics

320L – Electronics for Scientists

330L – Optics Laboratory

335 – Physics and Chemistry of the Atmosphere

407 – Electromagnetic Theory

408 – Optics

440 – Computational Physics

Graduate

Please see the Atmospheric Physics graduate program catalog.

 

Mechanical Engineering

TBD

 

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

TBD

 

Mathematics and Statistics

TBD