MET 610 – Tropical Climate and Weather
Spring 2012
Room: HIG 309; Meeting Time: 1200-1:15 am, Tuesday and Thursday
Instructor: Shang-Ping Xie, POST-413B; Tel: 956-6758; xie@hawaii.edu
Prerequisites: Met 200, 303/402 (or Met 600)
In the tropics huge amounts of latent heat are released in deep convection, driving the global
atmospheric circulation. The strong interaction of the circulation and convection, and with the land
surface and ocean shapes tropical climate, as manifested in the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO),
monsoons, and El Nino/the Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The first half of this class discusses the major
features of tropical climate, and interactive processes that create and cause them to vary in space and
time. The second half (instructor: Prof. Y.L. Chen) covers weather phenomena in the tropics. The
lectures will be given in PowerPoint presentations, with handouts to be distributed on the class website.
No single textbook is adequate to cover all the topics of the lectures. Key references (book chapters and
review papers) will be given during the class. Students are encouraged to read them.
Each student is required to make a 15-minute presentation on a topic of your choice based on class
reading, additional references, and/or original research. A list of possible topics and references will be
distributed. The student presentations may be scheduled in or out of regular class time.
Grading: For the first half semester there will be one exam (20%; March 3), homework (20%),
presentation and class participation (10%).
1. Energy balance
Review of key concepts (geostrophy,
Ekman effect, potential temperature, static
stability), history of climate research,
energy (im)balance, and heat transport.
8. Monsoons
Structure, seasonal march, land-sea thermal
contrast, soil moisture, orographic effects
2. Zonal-mean circulation
Hadley circulation, subtropical jet, its role
in precipitation and energy transport.
9. Minimum oceanography for
meteorologists
thermocline (1.5-layer model), wind-driven
currents, upwelling, mixed layer, heat
budget, surface heat flux
3. Major precipitation/convergence zones
ITCZ, SPCZ, SACZ, hydrological cycle,
moisture convergence, sea surface
temperature (SST) effect
10. WES feedback and meridional
asymmetry
Equatorial cold tongue/Walker circulation,
northward displaced ITCZ
4. Interaction of circulation and circulation
Equatorial waves, the Matsuno-Gill model
11. Bjerknes feedback and El Nino/the
Southern Oscillation
Structure, coupled modes and instabilities,
ocean memory, and ENSO cycle
5. Major planetary-scale features
Walker circulations, warm pools, trade
winds, and subtropical jet core
6. Subtropical high and trade winds
Trade wind inversion, low clouds, Hawaii
climate, orographic rainfall
7. Madden-Julian Oscillation
Circum-global structure, propagation,
equatorial waves, moist effect, super cloud
clusters
12. ENSO’s global teleconnection
Phase locking, global influence and
teleconnection, Hawaii rainfall variability
13. Climate change
Atmospheric stabilization, changes in
precipitation, circulation, and tropical
cyclones
At the class website (http://iprc.soest.hawaii.edu/~xie/class), the class notes including ppt
slides will be posted in pdf after each lecture (password: met-610).
Reference books
Diaz, H.F., and R.S. Bradley (eds), 2005 (DB05): The Hadley Circulation: Present, Past
and Future. Kluwer Academic Pub., pp. 511.
Peixoto, J.P. and A.H. Oort, 1992: Physics of climate. AIP, pp. 520. (great atlas & budget
analysis)
Wallace, J.M., and P.V. Hobbs, 2005 (WH05): Atmospheric Science. Academic Press,
pp.483. (Covers descriptive, dynamical and physical meteorology at the upper
undergraduate level; great value)
COMET at NCAR: http://www.meted.ucar.edu/resource_modlist.php
Wikipedia: http://www.wikipedia.org/
First quarter
Gill, A.E., 1982 (G82): Atmosphere-Ocean Dynamics. Academic Press, pp. 662.
(Harmony of dynamics and observations)
Hartmann, D.L., 1994 (H94): Global Physical Climatology. Academic Press, pp. 411.
(Blend descriptive and dynamical approaches by a distinguished dynamist)
Hasterath, S., 1991: Climate Dynamics of the Tropics. Kluwer Academic Pub., pp. 488.
(Great geographical climatology)
Holton, J.R., 2004: An Introduction to Dynamic Meteorology. Academic Press, pp. 535.
Lindzen, R.S., 1990: Dynamics in Atmospheric Physics, Cambridge, pp. 310.
Second quarter
Philander, S.G.H., 1990 (P90): El Nino and the Southern Oscillation. Academic Press, pp.
Wang, C., S.-P. Xie, and J.A. Carton (eds), 2004 (WXC04): Earth Climate: The OceanAtmosphere Interaction. Geophys. Monogr., 147, AGU, pp. 414.
Access to journal articles. By googling its title, you can find the journal’s website. Most
relevant journals for this class are published by the American Meteorological Society (AMS)
and American Geophysical Union (AGU). The links to their online archives are
http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-archive
AMS: J. Climate (JC), J. Atmospheric Science (JAS), Monthly Weather Review (MWR),
J. Physical Oceanography (JPO), Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
(BAMS)
http://www.agu.org/journals/
AGU: J. Geophysical Research (JGR), Geophysical Research Letters (GRL), Review of
Geophysics (RoG)
UH has institutional subscription to both groups so you should have free access to their
journals. In general, you can access to most scientific journals via UH Library online:
http://micro189.lib3.hawaii.edu/ezproxy/