Teaching

I regularly offer courses at the University of Hamburg.   My lectures focus on research topics related to clouds and climate processes.    The lectures on atmospheric moist convection explores macroscopic, or macrophysical, descriptions of moist convection; cloud physics presents a microphysical description.   My lectures on clouds and climate processes (forthcoming) explores the role of moist convection in the climate system more broadly. 

 

A Climate System View of Clouds and Convection:  

These lectures are on the climate and climate dynamics of cloudy atmospheres.  The course reviews the different ways clouds and convective processes contribute to the state and changes in the climate system.  The energy budgets of the top of the atmosphere and the surface will be presented, and the effects of clouds on the equilibrium surface temperature will be reviewed.  Concepts related to cloud and aerosol effects, forcing, feedbacks, and adjustments to climate perturbations will also be introduced and developed.  Our current understanding of cloud feedback processes will be developed.  The course is taught at the masters level, but is also appropriate for advanced undergraduates (bachelor students).  Lectures are given in German.
(Course Page:Winter 2011/2012)

 

 

Atmospheric Moist Convection: These lectures present a phenomenological description of the many forms of atmospheric moist convection, the physical laws that govern its behavior, and the theories or models that have been developed to help understand its individual and aggregate behavior.   The course lectures are in english and at the graduate level.  A special emphasis is placed on open topics related to moist convective processes within the climate system.   (Course Page: Winter 2009/2010)

 

 


Cloud Physics:
 
These lectures present a description of the thermodynamic and microphysical laws that govern the microphysical structure of clouds and precipitation. In addition to reviewing the elements of cloud (and aerosol) microphysics this course reviews the different types of models that have been developed to describe such processes; basic measurement techniques, including remote sensing; and some of the important outstanding questions.  The course is taught at an advanced undergraduate level and lectures are given in German.   (Course Page: Winter 2010/2011)