Teaching

AESM3001: Atmosphere Dynamics and Air-Sea Coupling (Spring 2023 - )

This 6EC core class of the Climate and Weather discipline of the new Applied Earth Sciences Master program will provide students with the deeper physical understanding to comprehend and study the complex atmospheric flows that define climate and weather. The module will use interactive lectures to introduce advanced dynamical principles to explain global climate, the planetary circulation, weather systems in the tropics and extratropics and coupled atmosphere-ocean phenomena that set weather and climate variability. In these lectures, laboratory experiments with a rotating tank or visualizations of atmospheric flows are a starting point to describe the complex flows in our atmosphere. Each week, the students will be guided during practical lab work/assignments in which material collected during the tank experiments, toy models or observational datasets are used and analyzed to describe uncoupled and coupled phenomena in the atmosphere.

CTB3311: Climate Impacts and Engineering (Spring 2020 - 2023)

This 4EC class is an elective designed for third-year Civil Engineering Bachelor students and provides students with the current scientific knowledge of the climate system and the combined roles of the atmosphere and ocean therein, and helps prepare students for assessing the risks and uncertainties of climate impacts in relation to specific suggested engineering challenges. The course is structured in four modules that target global, regional and local impacts of climate change (Climate Sensitivity, Ocean Circulation and Weather Patterns, and Weather Extremes, including floods, droughts, heat waves and storms) and the impact of engineering choices on climate change (the Carbon Cycle).


CIE4706: Introduction into Meteorology (Winter/Spring 2017 - 2022)

This 5EC class is designed for first-year Master students of the Environmental Engineering track with no background in atmospheric sciences, and focuses on an introduction into atmospheric phenomena that define weather and climate in different regions on Earth. An emphasis is given to using basic equations and observations (radiosonde balloons, ground-based and space-borne remote sensing) to study the temperature, moisture and wind structure of the atmosphere and patterns of cloudiness and precipitation.

After following this class, students can:
  • name Earth's important climate zones and associated weather and clouds, and explain the origin of large-scale phenomena on Earth, including convective cloud systems, frontal/storm systems, the Hadley/Walker circulations, and ENSO;
  • explain which atmospheric processes influence the thermodynamic structure of the atmosphere (including radiation and convection) and the patterns of horizontal wind;
  • apply the equation of state and Clausius-Clapeyron to calculate thermodynamic variables; and hydrostatic balance, angular momentum conservation and the equations of motion on a rotating sphere to calculate winds;
  • perform simple visualisations of radiosonde and remote sensing observations, and use these to infer the atmospheric state and presence of convection and clouds.