Atmospheric Circulation, Climate and Ice Sheets

Professor David Battisti, University of Washington and University of Bergen will give four lectures on the topic Atmospheric Circulation, Climate and Ice Sheets.

Monday August 16, 10.15-12 and 13.15-14 and Tuesday 17, 10.15-12 and 13.15-14.

This will be a six hour course that covers several topics relating to essential understanding the basic features of the climate system, such as what determines the total meridional heat transport in the system and therefore climate, and for understanding the response of the climate system to forcing by changing greenhouse gases and by changing orography, both past and present. The course will be divided into six sections.

The first section of the course will focus on understand the relative contributions of geometry and processes internal to the climate system for setting the equator-to-pole gradients in absorbed solar insolation that drive all circulation and meridional energy transport. 

The second section of the course will examine the role of east-west asymmetries in the surface boundary conditions for understanding east-west differences in climate and circulation (including stationary waves and the location of the storm tracts.

The third section of the course will examine the underlying physics for the major patterns of climate variability, including the NAO, NPO, and the SAM.

The fourth section of this course will discuss the effect of coupling between the atmosphere and ocean to augment the variance in patterns of atmospheric variability, as well as the implications for predictability of these patterns.

The fifth section of the course will examine the impact of Ice Sheets on the global temperature, and on circulation and storminess.

The sixth section of the course will examine the impact of increased greenhouse gases on the atmospheric circulation and how that will affect the ocean circulation and hence the temperature of the water that impinges on major ice shelves in Antarctica.