1 -- INTRODUCTION

1.1 Lecture Objectives

2 -- CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF THE ATMOSPHERE

2.1 The Major Constituents of the Atmosphere

2.2 The Minor (Trace) Constituents of the Atmosphere

      2.2.1 Water vapor

      2.2.2 Methane

      2.2.3 Ozone

2.3 Trace Species as Greenhouse Gases

2.4 Trace Greenhouse Gas Trends

2.5 Additional Atmospheric Components: Aerosols and Ions

2.6 Evolution of Earth's Atmosphere

3 -- VERTICAL STRUCTURE OF THE ATMOSPHERE

3.1 Temperature Scales

      3.1.1 Temperature conversion from Fahrenheit to Celsius

      3.1.2 The Kelvin scale

      3.1.3 Kelvin to Celsius temperature conversion

3.2 Pressure and Density

      3.2.1 Derivation of pressure and density as a function of altitude

3.3 Atmospheric Vertical Temperature Distribution

      3.3.1 Atmospheric static stability

      3.3.2 Potential temperature

3.4 The Troposphere

      3.4.1 Thermal energy transfer

      3.4.2 Convective instability

      3.4.3 The tropopause

3.5 The Stratosphere

      3.5.1 Convectively stable, vertically stratified

      3.5.2 Ozone and stratospheric temperature profile

3.6 The Mesosphere and Beyond

4 -- HORIZONTAL STRUCTURE OF THE ATMOSPHERE

4.1 The Mean Behavior of Temperature and Zonal Winds

      4.1.1 General characteristics

                (i) The troposphere

               (ii) The stratosphere

      4.1.2 Seasonal variation of temperature with latitude

      4.1.3 North-south variation of temperature at different heights

      4.1.4 Seasonal variation of the zonal wind with latitude

      4.1.5 Variation in the seasonal mean zonal wind with altitude

4.2 Other Temporal Variations of the Atmosphere

      4.2.1 Weather systems and ozone

      4.2.2 Stratospheric sudden warmings

      4.2.3 The Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO)

      4.2.4 The El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO)

      4.2.5 Possible correlations between ENSO Events and total ozone

5 -- ATMOSPHERIC DYNAMICS

5.1 Geostrophic Balance

      5.1.1 Geostrophic winds

      5.1.2 Geopotential height

      5.1.3 The Coriolis

      5.1.4 The magnitude of the Coriolis force

      5.1.5 The thermal wind

5.2 Conserved Quantities

      5.2.1 Potential temperature

      5.2.2 Potential vorticity

5.3 Waves

      5.3.1 Gravity (buoyancy) waves

      5.3.2 Rossby waves

      5.3.3 Inertio-gravity waves

      5.3.4 Forced stationary planetary waves

      5.3.5 Free traveling planetary waves

      5.3.6 Equatorial waves

      5.3.7 Midlatitude gravity waves

      5.3.8 Wave-mean flow interaction

5.4 Mean Meridional Circulation 

REVIEW QUESTIONS

REFERENCES