MAE 125A: FLOW AND TRANSPORT IN THE ENVIRONMENT

Instructor: Prof. Jan Kleissl, jkleissl at ucsd Lectures: Tue, Thu 1230-150 (CSB004), Wed 3-350 WLH2204 Office Hours: JK: Tue 2-3pm, Wed 4-450pm, EBU-2 580; TA: Wed 4-450pm, EBU-2 174 Prerequisites: MAE101A or SE115 or Phys2C or Chem149A or SIO117 or instructor consent Homework: weekly, 10% of total grade Environmental design project report: by group of 2-4 (10%, due Dec 4). Exams: one midterm on Nov 5 (25%) and final on Dec 11 (55%). Text: Stull: Meteorology for Scientists and Engineers Class schedule changes: Sept 24: class will take place as usual, Oct 13: class cancelled; Oct 14: TA session during 4th hour, no office hour; Nov 25: 4th hour and office hour cancelled

Midterm Nov 5, covers chapters 1-6, 18

Course Content:


1. Radiation: Intro to atmosphere. Radiation. Climate change. The surface energy balance: Solar radiation, albedo. Ground heat flux. Sensible and latent heat flux. Stull: Chapter 1, 2, 3, 18
   
2. Classification of environmental flows: Stability, stratified flow; boundary layers, moisture and heat in the atmosphere, thermodynamic diagrams. Stull: Chapters 3-6
   
3. Gravity driven flows and waves: Pi theorem. The dispersion relation and deep and shallow water waves. Hydraulic control, sub and supercritical flows and the Froude number.
4. Turbulence and Dispersion in the Atmospheric Boundary Layer: Gaussian plume model, advection-diffusion equation, Atmospheric measurements and instrumentation. Stull Chapter 17
5. Heat transfer in the urban environment: surface energy balance; radiation, conduction, and convection; mitigation of urban heat islands; building energy use;
   
6. Evapotranspiration (ET): physics of evapotranspiration (ET). Penman Monteith equation. Measurement of ET.
   
7. Flow and transport in San Diego: Sea breeze, coastal upwelling, Santa Ana winds

Policy of Academic Honesty

Exam rules

• turn off and stow all portable electronic devices
• open notes, homeworks, official lecture notes, one book of your choice
• midterm covers HW1-6, Stull chapters 1-6, 18
• final covers everything

Homeworks

• Homework 1: Radiation, Solution
• Homework 2: Radiation, Solution note that time vector has to be a column vector. Usage example is shown in file or type 'help R'.
• Homework 3: Heat Solution
• Homework 4: Boundary Layers (due 10/22 in class, chapter 4 of Stull). Solution Discuss the result of each problem (1-2 sentences). In all graphs of atmospheric profiles, the y-axis should show height and the x-axis the dependent variable (e.g. temperature, pressure).
  N8 [10 pts], MATLAB: N9 [5 pts], N12 (assume M1 = 10 m/s at z = 100 m rather than M1 = 5 m/s at z = 10m; plot wind speed only in region where log profile is valid, plot all velocity profiles in one plot) [10 pts], N19 [10 pts],
  U2 [5 pts], W10 (use a sounding from Kansas; note that local time lags UTC by 7 hours) [5 pts], S8 [5 pts]
• Homework 5: Boundary Layers, Moisture Solution
• Homework 6: (due 11/5 in class, chapter 6 of Stull). Discuss the result of each problem (1-2 sentences).
  N1 (use diagrams on pages 133, 134 instead of a) and b) in the problem statement), N2a, N3, N4, N5, U1, W5 (use same sounding as in Homework 4 assuming that the temperature at the lowest height is 10K larger than measured, i.e. assume that during daytime the temperature at that height would increase by 10K due to heating of the ground while everything else remains the same)

Lecture Notes
Written by Paul Linden and adapted by Jan Kleissl

• Chapters 1 and 2: Climate Change, Introduction to EFM, atmosphere, and oceans
• Chapter 3: Dimensional Analysis and Waves
• Climate Change:
  • Slides of Climate Change Lecture
  • Presentation by James Hansen (NASA) and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 4th assessment
• Slides on Energy Balance, Radiation, Turbulent fluxes (26MB; up to slide 49)
• Water:
  • Water in California: Supply, Infrastructure, and Demand