Goals and Objectives
Goal: Students will become proficient in the interpretation of meteorological processes in general science terms.
- Objective: Students will be able to explain selected meteorological processes in terms of dynamic equilibrium.
- Objective: Students will be able to explain certain conserved properties in terms of budgets with associated sources and sinks.
- Objective: Students will be able to explain various meteorological phenomena in terms of the role of stability.
- Objective: Students will be able to explain the role of models in science.
Goal: Students will become proficient in the use and interpretation of standard meteorological tools and techniques.
- Objective: Students will become proficient in the interpretation of contour lines.
- Objective: Students will be able to interpret station models, including wind barbs.
- Objective: Students will be able to interpret the symbols commonly used in midlatitude synoptic meteorology, including various kinds of fronts and pressure systems.
- Objective: Students will learn to interpret wind in terms of a vector addition of several fundamental forces.
Goal: Students will be able to describe various meteorological phenomena in terms of applications of the primitive equations.
- Objective: The basics of heat transport in the atmosphere can be explained in the context of radiation laws, conduction, convection, advection, and latent heat release.
- Objective: The basics of moisture conservation in the atmosphere can be explained in the context of phase changes of water and hydrology.
- Objective: Students will be able to explain the forces at work in the atmosphere and how they achieve geostrophic balance aloft.
- Objective: Students will understand how profiles of convergence and divergence in the atmosphere lead to patterns of rising and sinking motion.
- Objective: Students will be able to explain the behavior of atmospheric gases in terms of the Ideal Gas Law.