AGF-350 The Arctic Atmospheric Boundary Layer and Local Climate Processes (10 ECTS)

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Course requirements

Enrolment in a relevant master programme in meteorology, oceanography, climate science, or similar. Students should have a general knowledge in meteorology and the climate system. 

Academic content

The course centres on the near-surface, small-scale physical processes that influence Arctic weather and climate, and on how these processes are represented in numerical models. The Arctic is warming several times faster than the global average, and the strength of this amplification depends largely on how energy is exchanged between the surface and the atmospheric boundary layer. Because these exchanges are governed by local processes acting on scales far smaller than the model grid, they must be parameterized rather than resolved. Understanding these physical processes, and the methods used to study them in the Arctic, is the main learning outcome of the course.

The course opens with general lectures on Arctic climate and meteorology, the fundamentals of the Arctic atmospheric boundary layer, and the surface energy balance over polar regions. Lecture series on four specialized research topics, which vary from year to year, are then presented by leading experts in each field. Students are subsequently assigned to groups, one group per topic, and design and carry out their own field campaigns before writing a scientific report.

Previous specialization topics have included turbulence in the boundary layer measured from a mobile platform, AI for hyperlocal Arctic weather forecasting, coupling between the snowpack and the atmospheric boundary layer, local valley winds and circulation, methane fluxes over permafrost, fibre-optic distributed sensing for high-resolution temperature profiles, the structure of katabatic flows, and surface decoupling in the stable boundary layer.

Additional instruction covers Arctic fieldwork and safety, measurement techniques, numerical modelling, and the data analysis methods needed for these topics.

Learning activities

The course extends over ca 6 weeks including compulsory safety training, and is run in combination with AGF-850.

The course is centred on the following types of learning activities:

• Classroom lectures covering introductory material and background theory on the physical phenomena that govern local weather and climate in the Arctic.
• Specialized lectures on topics relevant to local weather and climate, bridging textbook material and current research.
• Seminars on the observational and numerical tools used in the fieldwork and subsequent analysis, including hands-on experience with the instrumentation and an introduction to analysing the datasets collected during the fieldwork.
• Fieldwork addressing the topics from (2) with the methods and instrumentation from (3). Guided by the lecturers, students take the leading role in both planning and executing the field campaigns.
• General-interest lectures from meteorologists who apply the course material in practice, in weather forecasting, avalanche and landslide forecasting, and related operational settings.

Compulsory learning activities

All compulsory learning activities must be approved in order to sit the exam.

• Participate in the fieldwork
• Contribute to the field report
• Oral presentation of the field report

Assessment

• All assessments must be passed in order to pass the course.
• Each assessment is graded, and subsequently combined into a single grade. Partial grades for each assessment will be available.

Method	Percentage of final grade
Written field report	30%
Oral exam	70%

Student life