AGF-850 The Arctic Atmospheric Boundary Layer and Local Climate Processes (10 ECTS)

Grade:	Letter grade (A through F)
Course Cost:	None
Course Capacity Min/Max:	10/20 students (AGF-350/850 in total)
Language of instruction:	English
Examination support material:	Bilingual dictionary between English and mother tongue

How to apply

Norbert Pirk

Adjunct Professor

norbert.pirk@geo.uio.no

UNIS Contact person:

Course requirements

Enrolment in a relevant PhD programme. Students should have general knowledge about meteorology, like AGF-213 Polar Meteorology and Climate or similar.

Academic content

Weather forecasts in the Arctic are often unreliable, and the global climate models show a large uncertainty in scenarios. One of the reasons is that processes in the Arctic atmospheric boundary layer often are poorly implemented in these kinds of models. The course covers themes relevant for the Arctic atmospheric boundary layer including theory of the boundary layer with special emphasis on the stable boundary layer.

Amongst the covered topics are also boundary layer turbulence and topographically induced phenomena such as drainage flow, channelling effects and barrier flows. Air-sea-ice interactions are central to the Arctic climate and will be covered and related to e.g., heat fluxes over leads and polynyas. The course will also include lessons on measurement techniques, numerical modelling and data analysis relevant for the mentioned topics.

Learning outcomes

Upon completing the course, the students will:

Learning activities

The course extends over ca 6 weeks including compulsory safety training, and is run in combination with AGF-350.

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

• classroom lectures covering background theory and concepts related to phenomena that are typical for the Arctic boundary layer,
• computer exercises relevant and instructive for understanding the themes and phenomena introduced in the classroom lectures,
• seminars covering the observational and numerical tools that will be used during the course. These seminars will include hands-on experience with the instruments and an introduction to data analysis of the datasets from the observations and numerical simulations performed during the course,
• fieldwork addressing a selection of the phenomena introduced in points 1) and 2) using the instrumentation introduced in point 3). With guidance from the lecturers, the students will take an active part in both the planning and the execution of the fieldwork,
• presentations by the students after each day of fieldwork covering preliminary results and a final presentation by the students of reports that will be written in groups.

Compulsory learning activities

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

• Fieldwork
• Oral presentation of field report
• Computer exercises
• Presentation of PhD thesis project

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.

Student life