3 credits
Spring 2024 Lecture Upper Division
This course tackles the observed structure of the Earth's tropical atmosphere and the core theories that explain this structure and its variability. Topics include the 3D annual and seasonal mean state, the energy budget, the Hadley cell, monsoons, the Walker cell, equatorial waves, ENSO, convective aggregation, easterly waves, and tropical cyclones.
Learning Outcomes1Visualize and identify the most important features of the tropical atmosphere and describe them in terms that can be understood by a non-expert.
2Explain how the Sun shining on a rotating rock with an overlying water ocean provides the necessary ingredients for the many different forms of variability in the tropical atmosphere.
3Develop testable hypotheses about any aspect of the tropical atmosphere of interest.
4Perform experiments using simple physical computational models to test hypotheses.
5Use real-world historical data (e.g., reanalysis) to test hypotheses.
Restrictions
made by Purdue students.