SIO115 Ice and the Climate System

Syllabus & Timetable 2020

Monday/Wednesday/Friday 9am in Revelle Conference Room (4301)

Please put your cell phones away before coming into my classes. If you are a medical person on call, or if you have children, or if there is some other legitimate reason why you might need to take a phone call during my class, then please let me know.

Homework is assigned each Friday and due the following Friday.

There are eight homeworks in total.

Late policy: 10% off every day after Friday. Homework needs to be in before the start of the next class because we might go over homework then.

You are expected to submit homeworks electronically, typed up in a PDF format.

You are allowed to use any program to type up your answers, but encouraged to use LaTeX! To facilitate the use of LaTeX, you will find templates for each homework on the course website, which are pre-populated with the questions for that homework. All that's left for you to do is going to the main.tex document on the directory on the left, adding your own name to the document, and writing your answers wherever it says "Your answer here." You can find some more information on how to get started with LaTeX here.

When submitting homework, please stick to the naming convention SIO115-HwXX-Lastname-Firstname.pdf, so for example, SIO115-HW01-Doe-Jane.pdf for the first homework. Please email your answers to parndt@ucsd.edu with subject line SIO115 Homework X Lastname Firstname by the appropriate deadline.

TA: Philipp Arndt: parndt@ucsd.edu

HELPFUL NOTES TO ASSIST IN PAPER READING AND DISCUSSION

Find in page:

Week 1. Introduction to the Cryosphere in the Earth System

6 January: Elements of the cryosphere; importance of the cryosphere **Week 1 Slides**
8 January: Role of the cryosphere in the climate system; NASA Tour of Cryosphere video partially shown in class
10 January: Role of the cryosphere in the climate system; sea-level change; paper & book discussion

Discussion papers:

Scambos et al. 2011 Earth’s ice: Sea level, climate, and our future commitment
What is the cryosphere? Hint: It's vital to farming, fishing and skiing (Mark Serreze, The Conversation)

***Guidelines for paper discussions***

Additional reading:

Chapter 1 of "The Cryosphere" by Shawn Marshall.
Chapters 1, 2 and 3 of the UNEP Report

Homework 1 (due Friday 17 January): Cryosphere and its importance for climate [LaTeX template]

Week 2. Past climate change and past climate records

13 January: Transition of snow to ice; ice divides; ice cores Video ** Week 2 Slides **
15 January: Ice ages; ocean isotopes
17 January: Paper discussion for ice cores and ice ages (Lorius and Petit)

Discussion papers:

Additional reading:

Ice cores and climate change fact sheet: British Antarctic Survey
Van Ommen, The Conversation, 2016
Wolff, The Conversation, 2014
BBC Article 14 Nov 2016
Ice cores sections of "The Cryosphere" by Shawn Marshall (see Index).

Clarification:
An informal explanation of temperature reconstruction from stable oxygen isotope ratios (δ18O) in ice cores.

Homework 2 (due Friday 24 January): Ice Cores and Past Climate

- Data for homework: icecore_isotope_data.txt, insolation.txt
- MATLAB template to get started: core_template.txt (to import the script directly into MATLAB you need to change the file extension to ".m")
- LaTeX template

- email with LaTeX clarifications & MATLAB first-timer instructions

Week 3. Snow cover, river ice and lake ice

20 January: MARTIN LUTHER KING HOLIDAY -- NO CLASS
22 January: Snow cover ** Week 3 Slides ***
24 January: River Ice and lake Ice

Discussion papers:

Climate change is shrinking winter snowpack, which harms Northeast forests year-round (Reinmann and Templer, The Conversation, 2018)

Additional reading:

Lake Baikal: how climate change is threatening the world’s oldest, deepest lake (Mackay and Swann, The Conversation, 2019)
Breaking the ice: river ice as a marker of climate change (EGU Blog post by Wayana Dolan).
Chapters 2, 3 and 4 of The Cryosphere" by Shawn Marshall.

Homework 3 (due Friday 31 January): Snow cover and lake ice [latex template]

Week 4. Lake ice & permafrost

27 January: Permafrost; active layer; importance of permafrost to climate *** Week 4 Slides ***
29 January: Permafrost; thermokarst; under sea permafrost; effects of thawing permafrost; monitoring permafrost
31 January: Permafrost wrap up and paper discussion (see below)

Discussion papers on permafrost:

Airborne electromagnetic imaging of discontinuous permafrost Minsley et al., 2012

Extra discussion papers:

The impact of the permafrost carbon feedback on global climate Schaefer et al., 2014
Economic impacts of carbon dioxide and methane released from permafrost Hope & Schaefer, 2015
Will the Arctic shift from a carbon sink to a carbon source Rawlins, The Conversation, 2015
Methane and the risk of runaway global warming Glikson, The Conversation, 2013
How Thawing Permafrost Is Beginning to Transform the Arctic 21 January 2020
POLAR VORTEX EXPLAINER FROM NOAA
Another explainer from Climate Signals

SIO115 Ice and the Climate System

Syllabus & Timetable 2020

Monday/Wednesday/Friday 9am in Revelle Conference Room (4301)

Homework is assigned each Friday and due the following Friday.

There are eight homeworks in total.

TA: Philipp Arndt: parndt@ucsd.edu

HELPFUL NOTES TO ASSIST IN PAPER READING AND DISCUSSION

Find in page:

Course texts

IPCC: Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (SROCCC)

UNEP Report: Global Outlook for Snow and Ice

CLiC Integrated Global Observing Strategy Report

IPCC AR5 Chapter 4 (Final Draft)