Atmospheric Science

This course examined the processes and patterns of the earth’s atmospheric system. It involved interpreting both meteorology and climatology within atmospheric chemistry, physics, and dynamics. Additionally, human-environment interactions within atmospheric systems were addressed, including human impacts on weather and climate and the effect weather and climate have on the environment in which we live. Major topics overviewed included the earth-sun relationship, atmospheric structure and composition, air pollution, wind and global circulation, moisture and precipitation, air masses and fronts, severe weather, climates of the world, and climate change.

The final paper for this course involved selecting a topic pertaining to atmospheric science (I chose geoengineering, which the idea behind it is to essentially compensate for the warming we have caused by removing CO2 from the atmosphere or reflecting solar insolation that would otherwise be hitting the earth, warming it further. Though broad; its official definition is humans’ intentional altering of planetary-scale processes) and writing up a literature review encompassing at least ~15 peer reviewed sources. This idea was interesting to me because of its controversiality. Human activity has exacerbated global warming… so is messing with natural processes even more really the right answer to fixing global warming? This project taught me a lot on filtering through a plethora of sources and deciding which are reputable and formulating a paper on a controversial topic. It was cool to research something that used to sound so outlandish to me and realizing that it really isn’t that far-fetched, it just might not be a good idea regardless.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XDUHlyXF9fb_IuJTBP9yjXN3dlgRhMkfIPGHW9WQRUw/edit?usp=sharing