Results for numerical weather

Numerical weather prediction. Continuity equations for air and water vapor, the thermodynamic energy equation, and momentum equations derived for the atmosphere. Numerical methods of solving partial differential equations, including finite-difference, finite-element, semi-Lagrangian, and pseudospectral methods. Time-stepping schemes: the forward-Euler, backward-Euler, Crank-Nicolson, Heun, Matsuno, leapfrog, and Adams-Bashforth schemes. Boundary-layer turbulence parameterizations, soil moisture, and cloud modeling. Project developing a basic weather prediction model. Prerequisite: CS 106A or equivalent.

Atmospheric physics refers to the physical behavior of Earth's atmosphere (and those of other planets). The purpose of this course is to introduce the laws of the thermodynamics that drive the changes in temperature, moisture, and the energy conversions, and the physics of aerosols, clouds, and precipitation (also known as "microphysics"). Understanding these processes on multiple time and space scales is crucial to gain insights of the evolution of the Earth's weather and climate systems. The advancement of atmospheric physics is dependent on observations from a variety of platforms (in situ, ground-based, and remote sensing), providing massive amounts of information regarding the evolving state of the atmosphere. These observational data are then fed into numerical models of the atmosphere, which play an increasingly important role in decision-making, from short-term forecasts of hazardous weather to long-term policy implications of global climate change. The course will discuss the state-of-the-art observations and numerical models related with aerosol, cloud, and precipitation.