METR 5004: Fundamentals of Atmospheric Science (Autumn 2013)

Prerequisites: Graduate standing in meteorology, physical science, or engineering program, or permission of instructor. Incoming graduate students are expected to have a working knowledge of calculus through ordinary differential equations (MATH 3113 or MATH 3413).
Corequisite: None
Description: Present a rigorous survey of the fundamental concepts in atmospheric science to provide the foundation for future graduate course work in meteorology and in related disciplines. The benefit to students in the graduate meteorology program who have undergraduate degrees outside of meteorology will be to provide sufficient background knowledge so that the students are prepared to successfully undertake graduate course work in meteorology. The benefit to graduate students with undergraduate degrees in meteorology is to present a breadth of subject areas that are not typically covered in most undergraduate programs and to cover these areas at the level of rigor expected in graduate studies. Graduate students in related fields, such as hydrology and radar engineering, will benefit from a survey of the important concepts in the atmospheric sciences. The course will be taught at a rapid pace due to the large amount of material covered


Instructor: Prof. Steven Cavallo
Office: NWC 5349
Email: cavallo@ou.edu
Phone: (405)-325-2439


Graders: Matt Elliott (mse@ou.edu) and Sam Lillo (splillo@ou.edu)
Office: NWC 5340 (AAARG office)


Class meeting times: MTWR 10-10:50am NWC 1313


Office hours:MTW 11-12pm (NWC 5349) or by appointment


For more information, download the full course syllabus here (pdf).


Remaining schedule

November 25 (Monday) 10am-10:50am Climate Dynamics: Introduction (Ch. 10 Wallace and Hobbs)
November 26 (Tuesday) NO CLASS
November 26-28 (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday) Thanksgiving holidays
December 2 (Monday) 10am-10:50am Group tutorial: WRF (Chris, Kyle, Zach)
December 3 (Tuesday) 9am-10:50am Tropical Meteorology: Tropical waves (Dr. Parsons) (Note the early start time)
December 4 (Wednesday) 10am-10:50am Group tutorial: WRF (Chris, Kyle, Zach)
December 5 (Thursday) 10am-10:50am Climate Dynamics: Conclusion (Ch. 10 Wallace and Hobbs)


Suggested homework problems from Wallace and Hobbs 2nd Edition can be found here (pdf).



Supplementary material:

W&H textbook Errata
Answers to select W&H problems
Complete solutions to select exercises (Chapter 1)
Complete solutions to select exercises (Chapter 2)
Complete solutions to select exercises (Chapter 7)
Complete solutions to select exercises (Chapters 3-10)
Table of constants and conversions
Skew-T ln p Chart
"Introduction to Atmospheric Chemistry" by Daniel J. Jacob


Handouts and homeworks:
Best practices for scientific computing
Skew T-log p guide
Radar meteorology homework: Word and pdf formats and Solutions (pdf format)
Numerical weather prediction and data assimilation practice problems


Lectures, supplementary figures and animations:
Introduction and Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 8
Chapter 5: Atmospheric Chemistry (Dr. John Orlando): Part I, Part II, and Part III
Chapter 6: Cloud Microphysics (Dr. Corey Potvin) powerpoint slides from Lecture 1, Lecture 2, and Lecture 3
Chapter 9
Chapter 4
Radar Meteorology: Dr. Dick Doviak; Background reading
Radar Meteorology lecture slides from Chapters 1-3: Powerpoint or pdf format.
Radar Meteorology lecture slides from Chapter 4: Powerpoint or pdf format
Radar Meteorology lecture slides from Chapters 5-6: Powerpoint or pdf format
Radar Meteorology lecture slides from Chapter 7: Powerpoint or pdf format
Radar Meteorology review slides: Powerpoint or pdf format
Shortened outline/midterm review focus for radar meteorology: Powerpoint and pdf
Dr. Lou Wicker's Numerical weather prediction and data assimilation slides
NWP/DA readings (Dr. Lou Wicker): Numerical weather prediction short notes, Mesinger Arakawa book chapters, and Data assimilation short notes
Data assimilation journal article: Assimilation of observations, and introduction by Olivier Talagrand
DA notes from Dr. Wang

Exam II outline

Tropical meteorology lectures slides Part I (Dr. Parsons): Powerpoint and pdf
Tropical meteorology readings: Click here for links to (1) Holton and Hakim Chapter 11, (2) Wheeler and Kiladis 1998, (3) Emanuel 2004

Chapter 10 (Climate Dynamics)


Material to help with preparation for final exam



Group tutorials:
Group 1 powerpoint and python script






Return to Top
OU SoM home page