Syllabus: (PDF)
Email Dr. Larsen
Dr. Larsen's Main Page
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- WELCOME! -
This is the web-page for Atmospheric Physics. If you're on this webpage, it is probably reasonable to figure that you are likely enrolled in the class -- so thanks for signing up. Materials on this webpage are meant to supplement information given to you in class itself. I'm not a big fan of OAKS, therefore any on-line supplementary material for the course you need can be found here. To the left, you'll find important links/syllabi/etc.If you'd like to find out more about me or the research we do in my lab, check out my main webpage.
- About This Course -
This course studies (no surprise here) the Physics of the Atmosphere. Since we recently introduced a new "Synoptic Meteorlogy course" (taught by Dr. Williams in the Spring of 2014) which focused on large-scale atmospheric phenomena, this course will centrally focus on the part of atmospheric physics known as "atmospheric microphysics". In a nutshell, we will be primarily studying aerosol particles, clouds, and precipitation and the processes that these atmospheric constituents take part in. Do not worry if you haven't taken Synoptic Meteorology (or any other atmospheric class); as long as you have mastered the content in the prerequisites for this class (PHYS 111, PHYS 112, MATH 120, MATH 220) you should be adequately prepared for the content in this class.The content in this class comes from a wide variety of sub-disciplines within Physics and Mathematics including (but not limited to) Thermodynamics, Statistical Mechanics, Fluid Dynamics, Atmospheric Chemistry, Photonics/Optics, and Classical Mechanics. If you have already taken these courses, you may be particularly well positioned to succeed in this class. If you still plan on taking some of these courses in the future, then hopefully your experience here will give you an advantage in those classes later on. Since PHYS 308 is a central core course in the Meteorology minor (along with PHYS 105), we will spend the first few weeks on "Basic Atmospheric Literacy". If you have taken PHYS 105, much of this content will be review (though, for some topics, we will probably go into a bit more depth). After we finish our basic atmospheric review/overview (sometime around the end of week 4) we will start talking about aerosols in a great deal of detail. Throughout the semester, we'll explore a bunch of different topics, but the underlying theme will be understanding the mechanisms by which airborne particulates transform into aerosol particles (with diameters as small as a few nanometers) to raindrops (with diameters around a millimeter or so). This doesn't sound like a big deal, but realize that this is a factor of 6 orders of magnitude in diameter (or 18 orders of magnitude in volume!) Lots of interesting physics happens along the way. Depending on student interest and available time, we may have a bit of flexibility in regards to the topics we will discuss. If there is something you want to make sure we cover in class, please stop by my office. If it works in the general theme, we can probably work something out to make sure we cover what you are interested in -- at least briefly.
- Course Announcements -
Remaining exam dates: 9/19/14, 10/24/14, 11/21/14, 12/10/14 (Final Exam).Homework will typically be due every Friday (except for Fridays you have exams). See more information in the course syllabus.
- Homework Assignments -
Assignment 1(PDF) (due 8/29/14)Assignment 2(PDF) (due 9/5/14)
Assignment 3(PDF) (due 9/12/14)
Assignment 4(PDF) (due 9/26/14)
Assignment 5(PDF) (due 10/3/14)
Assignment 6(PDF) (due 10/10/14)
Assignment 7(PDF) (due 10/17/14)
Assignment 8(PDF) (due 11/14/14)
Assignment 9(Not Yet Uploaded) (due 12/1/14) (The last day of class, which is a Monday)
- Links/Resources -
Texts worth consultation (PDF)Saturation Vapor Pressure as a Function of Temperature:
(Common Temperatures)
(On a semilog plot)
(Approaching/near boiling point)
Other Links:
(Scattering Efficiency as a function of Size Parameter)
(Mie Scattering Calculator Online!)
(Lewin Movie Part 1; start at 1:45)
(Lewin Movie Part 2)
(Fluids Movies)
(Drag Coefficient as Defined in Class)
(Comparison between terminal velocity of a solid sphere of density 1 g/cc and experimental results from the 1940s for liquid raindrops). (Ice Crystal Habits)
(Formation Conditions for Ice Crystals)
