1: Getting Started
- Page ID
- 3354
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The atmosphere is amazing, awe-inspiring, frightening, deadly, powerful, boring, strange, beautiful, and uplifting – just a few of thousands of descriptions. So much of our lives depend on the atmosphere, yet we often take it for granted. Atmospheric science attempts to describe the atmosphere with physical descriptions using words, but also with mathematics. The goal is to be able to write down mathematical equations that capture the atmosphere’s important physical properties (predictability) and to use these equations to determine the atmosphere’s evolution with time (prediction). Predicting the weather has long been a primary focus, but, increasingly, we are interested in predicting climate.
- 1.1: The atmosphere is …
- Atmospheric science attempts to describe the atmosphere with physical descriptions using words, but also with mathematics. The goal is to be able to write down mathematical equations that capture the atmosphere’s important physical properties (predictability) and to use these equations to determine the atmosphere’s evolution with time (prediction). Predicting the weather has long been a primary focus, but, increasingly, we are interested in predicting climate.
- 1.2: You will not believe what you can do with math!
- To get ready for the meteorology and atmospheric science in this course, you will need to refresh your ability to solve simple math problems, including solving simple problems in differential and integral calculus. At the same time, we will remind you about the importance of correctly specifying significant figures and units in your answers to the problems. The goal of this first lesson is to boost your confidence in the math you already know.
- 1.3: If you thought practice makes perfect, you could be right
- Calculus is an integral part of a meteorologist’s training. The ability to solve problems with calculus differentiates meteorologists from weather readers. You should know how to perform both indefinite and definite integrals. Brush up on the derivatives for variables raised to powers, logarithms, and exponentials. We will take many derivatives with respect to time and to distance.