Welcome to the ERTH 330W section 01, Environmental Science, public webpage for the Fall 2024 semester.
I will try to update this page every few days during the semester.

Above: Photo of the Park Fire on 26 July 2024 near Chico, California. Photo by Shane Mayor.

This course is entirely online and asynchronous. There are no fixed meeting times.

Required book: The Earth System 4th edition by James Kasting, Lee Kump, and Robert Crane.

Below is the general, tentative, approximate, probable, and unofficial schedule. This is based on the last semester and the current semester may not go at the same pace.

Week 1: Chapter 15: Pleistocene glaciations.
Week 2: Chapter 1: Global Change.
Week 3: Chapter 2: Daisyworld: An Introduction to Systems.
Week 4: Begin Chapter 3: Global Energy balance.
Week 5: Greenhouse gases, radiation, atmospheric composition and structure.
Week 6: Conclusion of Chapter 3: clouds, global energy budget, and radiative forcing.
Week 7: Mid-term exam #1 and begin Chapter 4 on at the atmospheric circulation.
Week 8: Pressure gradient forces, Coriolis effect, and geostrophic wind.
Week 9: General circulation 3-cell model.
Week 10: Lecture on the stratosphere, changes in weather and climate with latitude, and the hydrologic cycle.
Week 11: Exam on Chapter 4. Begin Chapter 5: The Ocean Circulation.
Week 12: Continue with ocean circulation: waves, Ekman spiral, gyres, upwelling and downwelling.
Week 13: Continue with ocean circulation: vorticity, boundary currents, thermocline, El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO).
Week 14: Salinity and density of seawater, thermohaline circulation, heat engines vs. heat pumps.
Week 15: Review week.
Finals week: Comprehensive Final Exam

Dr. Mayor's page

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