01. Introduction to Atmospheres

The Atmosphere, the Ocean and Environmental Change (GG 140)

This course studies the atmosphere and the ocean as parts of Earth's climate system. The climate is studied in both quantitative and qualitative ways through use of the textbook, lectures, labs and problem sets. Today's lecture includes an examination of Hurricane Irene that hit Connecticut a few days ago on August 28. For this, we use several website sources of local weather information:satellite, radar, tide gauges.. The atmosphere is gravitationally attracted to the Earth and is composed of gases that are invisible to the human eye. We are able to detect the presence of the atmosphere through our perceptions of the presence of air and changes in pressure.

00:00 - Chapter 1. Introduction
06:56 - Chapter 2. Course Overview
12:39 - Chapter 3. New Haven Weather Data during Hurricane Irene
27:43 - Chapter 4. Prof. Smith's Background and Research Interests
30:40 - Chapter 5. What is an Atmosphere?

Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website: http://oyc.yale.edu

This course was recorded in Fall 2011.