Global and Regional Climatology Course

BASIC COURSE INFORMATION

for GC/GEOG 431/531

About the Global and Regional Climatology course:

The goal of this advanced course in climatology is to provide a detailed description, understanding, and analysis of the global and regional atmospheric circulation processes that produce differences in climates throughout the world. In addition to a general overview of global atmospheric processes and regional climatic patterns, the course will emphasize the earth's problem climates and those climatically sensitive zones that are most susceptible to floods, droughts, and other environmental stresses due to global change. The course will emphasize the interaction between global and regional climates and the linkages between global atmospheric changes and regional climatic responses as they are manifested in synoptic-scale features and processes in different parts of the world. For students with a particular interest in paleoclimatology, special class discussions, exercises, and term project opportunities will be available after initial common material has been covered (see Paleoclimatology Topics attachment). [Prerequisite: ATMO 171, GEOG 171 or GEOG 103a.]

Course Objectives

1. to provide an in-depth treatment of the causes of regional climatic patterns and processes in terms of synoptic atmospheric circulation patterns;
2. to examine in detail regional examples of processes driven by the energy and moisture fluxes at the global scale;
3. to provide the climatic basis for a critical evaluation of some of the most urgent climate-related environmental problems facing humanity today;
4. to provide a sound foundation for the analysis of climatic environments of the past and/or future and a physical basis for reconstruction and interpretation of climates in all parts of the world using modeling and/or paleoenvironmental techniques, such as tree rings, ice cores, corals, and isotopic studies.

Location and Time

Class meets on Tuesdays & Thursdays: 9:30 - 10:45 am, West Stadium 104G, with occasional meetings in the Global Change Computer Teaching Lab in Harshbarger 118D.

Instructors

Office: 208 West Stadium (to find it, go up the stairs at Gate 15 on the west side of the football stadium).

Phone: 621-6466 (has answering machine).

E-mail: katie@LTRR.arizona.edu

Office hours:

Wednesday 10:30-11:30 am (or by appointment). I am also readily accessible by e-mail on most any day of the week and I can usually get a response back to you within 24 hours.

Office:105 West Stadium

Phone: 621-6470 (has voice mail).

E-mail: mhughes@LTRR.arizona.edu

Office hours:

Thursday 11:00 am - noon (or by appointment). I am also readily accessible by e-mail on most any day of the week and I can usually get a response back to you within 24 hours.

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