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| Instructor: Frances Malamud-Roam email: fmalamud@berkeley.edu office phone: 642-2381 office: 189 McCone office hours: MW 10-11 |
Class Location: 145 McCone Class Time: Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 9-10 Course control number: 36445 Units: 4 |
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| GSI: Jim Wanket email: jwanket@uclink4.berkeley.edu office phone: office: 193 McCone office hours: GSI: Dave Wahl email: dwahl@berkeley.edu office phone: office: 107 McCone office hours: Th 2:30-4:30 |
Discussion Sections: All sections meet in 135 McCone
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| Three hours of lecture per week. An overview of the interactive processes that result in the mosaic of environments on the earth and the controls on the distribution of ecosystems. Environmental change is explored on a variety of time and spatial scales so as to enhance our capability to distinguished between natural and human-induced climatic, biotic and physical changes.
Required text and reading: Elemental Geosystems, 3rd edition (EG). In addition to the textbook, we will occasionally make available articles to be reviewed in lab section (TBA). Grading: 4 quizzes during the semester and one final -- material covered will include lab and lecture. Quizzes 40% of grade Lab (includes weekly lab assignments) 30% of grade Final Exam. 30% of grade Course Topics: This course will introduce students to the idea of the Earth as a system and how this system responds under stress. We will study the components of the Earth system – including the solid Earth, the atmosphere and the oceans – but focus on how they are connected. As we learn more about how the earth functions, we’ll see that environmental change occurs naturally on many timescales. However, we’ll also see that since humans have been on the planet and operating in societies, changes to natural systems have occurred rapidly and in some cases the changes have been extreme. By the end of the semester, students should have a good understanding of why scientists predict increased incidences of flooding, fires, drought, heat-waves, storms resulting from Global Warming, but then say that current floods, fires, heat-waves, etc. cannot be directly blamed on Global Warming. The following is a list of topics to be covered in the course in the order we plan to cover them. Current climate extremes and Global Change Earth systems approach EG ch. 1 Global Energy balance (Some Laws) EG ch.2,3 Atmospheric Circulation System EG ch. 4, 5 Ocean Circulation systems EG ch. 4 Solid Earth Circulation EG. ch. 8 The Carbon cycle Long term controls on climate Glaciations – Pleistocene EG ch. 14 Climate Variability EG ch 17 Global Warming TBA Ozone depletion TBA Biodiversity EG ch. 16 Ecosystems of Special Interest In this part of the course, we will focus on some Ecosystems of Special Interest, which just means some ecosystems chosen either by us, the instructors, or colleagues who are willing to give guests lectures. Tidal wetlands Tropical rain forests Mountain ecosystems Coral Reefs The San Francisco Bay Glaciers |
| Images From the GOES Weather Satellites |
| A CURRENT CONTROVERSY: IS EUROPE ABOUT TO FREEZE? An article about how fluctuations in Thermohaline Circulations can trigger abrupt climate change. |
| Part 1: Energy-Atmosphere System |
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| Week 1: Notes |
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| 1. Introduction: Climate extremes: Wildfires, floods and Population; Is the present the key to the past? Greenhouse effect – natural; Global warming is anthropogenic. Potential future changes in distribution of arable lands) timescales of change |
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| 2. Earth systems approach (students read EG ch. 1) Lecture – TES ch. 2 |
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| 3. Global Energy balance (Some Laws) I (students read EG ch.2,3) Lecture – TES ch. 3, ECH ch 2). | |||
| 1. Electromagnetic Radiation, properties, the EM spectrum, Flux; 2. Blackbody radiation – Wiens law and Stefan-Boltzmann Law 3. Planetary Energy balance and the Greenhouse Effect NO LAB |
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| Week 2: Notes |
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| 4. Global Energy balance II (students read EG ch.2,3) Lecture – TES ch. 3, ECH ch 2). |
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| 1. Atmospheric Composition and structure (EG Ch. 3) |
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| 2. Earth’s global energy budget |
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| 5. Atmospheric Circulation System I (Students read Ch. 4 EG) lecture TES Ch 4 |
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| 1. Movement of air 2. Driving Force (p. 60 TES 3. General Circulation - convergence and divergence, Hadley, Midlatitude and High latitude circulation; 4. Coriolis effect; surface winds |
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| Week 3: Notes |
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| 6. Atmospheric Circulation system II (Students read Ch 5) |
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| 1. Seasons and seasonal variability (fig. 4.15 in TES) | |||
| 7. Global distributions of Temp and Rainfall | |||
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| Week 4: Notes |
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| 9. Ocean Circulation systems I (Students read EG Ch. 4) |
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| 1. winds and surface currents |
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| 2. convergence and divergence |
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| 3. up and down-welling |
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| 4. Circulation of the surface ocean | |||
| 10. Ocean Circulation systems II | |||
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| 11. Ocean Circulation Cont'd.. | |||
| Week 5: Notes |
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| 12. Solid Earth Circulation (EG. Ch. 8) | |||
| 1. Structure of the Earth and earthquakes 2. Theory of plate tectonics Sea-floor spreading 3. Plates and boundaries 4. Driving plate tectonics – convection and source of heat 5. recycling the lithosphere – the rock cycle 6. paleogeographic reconstructions |
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| 13. Plate Tectonics I | |||
| Week 6: Notes |
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| 14. Plate Tectonics II |
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| 15. Plate Tectonics III | |||
| 16. The Carbon Cycle | |||
| 1. following a carbon atom 2. reservoirs 3. short and long term organic carbon cycles 4. Inorganic carbon cycling |
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| Week 7: Notes |
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| 17. Long term climate record: glaciations throughout history of Earth and large scale reasons why. | |||
| 18. Greenhouse Earth | |||
| 19. The last 55 million years | |||
| Week 8: Notes |
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| 20. The Pleistocene and glaciations 21. More on Pleistocene and Holocene Quiz on Friday, October 18 |
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| Week 9: Notes |
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| Example of impacts of glacial cycles on evolution of an ecosystem: Salt marshes Out of town on Wed and possibly Fri |
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| Week 10: Notes |
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| Short-term variability in Climate: focus on Holocene period Quiz on Friday |
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| Week 11: | |||
| Ecosystem on Interest: Tropical Rain Forests (focus on biodiversity) | |||
| Week 12: | |||
| No class Monday Tegan Churcher to come on Wednesday: Coral reefs and climate change |
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| Week 13: | |||
| High altitude and latitudes ecosystems Depletion of ozone in atmosphere Ecosystems of Interest: Mountain ecosystems Jim Wanket to speak Wednesday (tentative) Quiz on Friday, November 22 |
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| Week 14: | |||
| Ecosystem on Interest: The San Francisco Bay No class on Friday |
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| Week 15: | |||
| Final considerations and summary | |||