EASC1310

This course meets Mn Transfer Curriculum Goal Area 3 Natural Sciences - This is an introductory meteorology course designed for non-science majors. This course focuses on understanding the basic concepts of meteorology by emphasizing observations of the atmosphere and using those observations to explore weather processes in-depth and explain a variety of atmospheric phenomena. This course emphasizes key atmospheric concepts that enable students to understand how science can explain a wide range of regional and local weather events, how it impacts society and their daily lives, and long-term climate connections. This course includes a lab component where students will use real-time and climatological data to analyze and predict weather events, climate patterns, and other atmospheric phenomena.

Student Learning Outcomes:

• Evaluate the risk and societal issues of natural hazards from a natural science perspective.
• Employ meteorological and climatological knowledge to analyze a variety of weather phenomena.
• Identify practices for communities to mitigate severe weather events and understand the socio-economic impacts of severe weather disasters.
• Describe the physical processes that affect and create atmospheric phenomena.
• Distinguish the layers of the atmosphere based on temperature and solar radiation.
• Interpret daily and seasonal temperature cycles in terms of the surface-energy budget and atmospheric stability.
• Explain how clouds form and describe the different types of precipitation.
• Diagnose synoptic and mesoscale atmospheric conditions that are favorable for severe weather development, using weather observations.
• Explain atmospheric forces and global, synoptic, mesoscale, and microscale winds, and how those winds affect the jet stream and pressure systems.
• Explain Atmosphere-Ocean circulations and interaction that impact climate systems, including the El-Nino phenomena.
• Classify different types air masses and fronts.
• Correlate midlatitude cyclone evolution and jet stream interaction to resultant severe weather.
• Identify the structure and explain the evolution of midlatitude and tropical cyclones.
• Describe the formation and evolution of different types of thunderstorms.
• Identify characteristics of thunderstorms and describe the processes that produce lightning, hail, and tornadoes.
• Collect and interpret various types of weather data to produce a short-term forecast; be able to communicate potential sources of error and uncertainty through probabilistic forecasting.
• Demonstrate the ability to inspect and question the accuracy of weather data/observations and numerical weather forecasts, to make informed judgments regarding natural hazard mitigation, response, and public policy.
• Identify climate zones of the world and describe the natural processes that affect global climate and climate changes.