Each year a different topic relevant to climate will be selected. Students will read papers and present them in class and will submit a hand-on project using simple models. 

This year's topic: Tropical circulation - the interaction of convection and quasi-balanced flow

The tropical circulation affect the climate in many ways. Also, many of the most extreme rain events are induced by tropical circulation systems. This class will examine the interaction between convection and quasi-balanced flow in the tropics, specifically in different planetary waves and the Madden Julian Oscillation- a quasi-periodic circulation pattern with a time scale of one to few months which affects the circulation in large parts of the globe and contributes to seasonal predictability