BISHOP’S UNIVERSITY
Environmental Science Programme/Department of Physics
ENV 375/PHY 335: ENVIRONMENTAL PHYSICS
Winter 2015
Instructor: Dr. Valerio Faraoni
Office: Molson 107, tel. 819 822 9600 ext. 2490, fax 819 822 9661,
electronic mail vfaraoni@ubishops.ca
Office hours: Tuesday and Thursday 1.00–2.30 pm
Course website: https://moodle.ubishops.ca/ Assignments, solutions, and extra materials
will be posted there. A password will be given in class.
Textbook: E. Boeker & R. van Grondelle, Environmental Physics, Sustainable Energy and
Climate Change, third edition (Wiley, Chichester 2011, available at the bookstore) and notes
from the course website.
Additional resources: for exercices, I recommend V. Faraoni, Exercices in Environmental
Physics (Springer 2006) (not required, on reserve in the library).
Pre-requisites: ENV 101, PHY 207.
Credits: 3
Lectures: Monday and Wednesday 1.00-2.20 pm in Johnson 117D. Students are encouraged
to ask questions and discuss the material in class, or to make good use of office hours.
Assignments: assignments will be posted on the course website and are typically due a week
later in class. Late assignments will not be accepted except for medical or compassionate reasons.
Exams: there will be two midterm exams and one comprehensive final exam, dates TBA.
Grading: midterm exams 20% each - final exam 30% - assignments 30%. There will be no
supplemental exams.
In exceptional circumstances, the content and/or evaluation scheme of a course may be subject
to change.
Academic misconduct: plagiarism and cheating are serious academic offenses and bring penalties. Be responsible and always make sure that your assignments contain your own solutions and
are written in your own words.
Course objectives
• Learning how to apply physics principles and methods to the description of the environment
and of the human impact on it.
• Becoming familiar with standard approaches to environmental problems and with examples
of their application.
• Fostering rational thinking in complex decisions related to environmental problems. Developing critical, analytical, and problem-solving skills and physical intuition.
Course outline
This is a one-semester, calculus-based course. Calculus is necessary and will be used to discuss
the material in the course.
• Chap. 1, web notes: introduction to environmental physics, solar energy, greenhouse
effect, and climate change.
• Chap. 2, web notes: electromagnetic spectrum, blackbodies, solar spectrum, LambertBeer-Bouguer law, ozone problem.
• Appendices B and C, web notes: a brief review of mathematical techniques used in
the rest of the course, including partial differentiation, vector calculus, cylindrical and
spherical coordinates, multiple integrals, parametric surfaces, volumes of regions of space,
moments of inertia, gradient, Laplacian, divergence, and curl operators, Gauss’ law, Dirac
delta, Gaussian function, error function and complementary error function, equations of
mathematical physics. Emphasis is placed on computational skills rather than on abstract
theory, generality, or completeness.
• Chap. 4, web notes: transport theory, heat transfer, electrical analogue, thermology,
phase transitions, calorimetry. Heat/diffusion equation and exact solutions: daily/seasonal
temperature changes, abrupt temperature changes, contact temperature and contact coefficient, heat generation in a cylindrical tube, heat exchange in fins, heating buildings,
energy and pollution.
2
• Chap. 7, web notes: transport of pollutants, diffusion, advection/diffusion equation and
its solutions: instantaneous plane source in 3D, finite size cloud, instantaneous line and
point sources in 3D, continuous point source in 3D, instantaneous and continuous point
sources in uniform wind, the effect of boundaries.
• Chap. 7, web notes: unusual properties of water, surface tension, capillarity. Groundwater hydrology, properties of water, basic concepts, soils, basic variables, Darcy’s law,
flow velocity, vertical flow in the unsaturated zone, conservation of mass, stationary flow,
stationary vertical flow, stationary flow underneath a wall. Time permitting: complex variable method, transport of pollutants in groundwater, Gaussian plumes. Gaussian plumes
in air.
3