Discover the Ocean and Skies with These Cool Courses at the University of Colorado, Boulder

Students will learn about mother Earth; its oceans, its atmosphere, its deserts, and its changing climates. Discover everything you've ever wanted to know about the weather in such classes as Weather and the Atmosphere, and Predicting Weather and Climate. You can even learn all you want about the world's oceans, including waves and currents in such classes as Oceanography. Students can also find out about the polution, and air chemistry they breathe every day. This program is packed with great classes designed for stimulating, and educating the aspiring oceanographer or meteorologist.

What Atmospheric Sciences are

Atmospheric sciences is a term for the study of the atmosphere, and its processes. Also, atmospheric sciences refers to the effects other systems have on the atmosphere, and the effects of the atmosphere on these other systems. Meteorology includes atmospheric chemistry and atmospheric physics with a major focus on weather forecasting. Climatology is the study of atmospheric changes - both long and short-term - that define average climates and their change over time, due to both natural climate variability and anthropogenic climate variability. Atmospheric science has been extended to the field of planetary science and the study of atmospheres on certain planets in the solar system.

What Oceanic Sciences are

Oceanic Sciences or oceanography, also called oceanology or marine science - is the branch of Earth Sciences that studies the Earth's oceans and seas. It covers a wide range of topics; such as, marine organisms and ecosystem dynamics. This includes ocean currents, waves, and geophysical fluid dynamics; plate tectonics and the geology of the sea floor; and fluxes of various chemical substances and physical properties within the ocean and across its boundaries. These diverse topics reflect multiple disciplines that oceanographers blend to further knowledge of the world ocean and understanding of processes within it: biology, chemistry, geology, meteorology, and physics.

Coolest classes in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences

ATOC 1050: Weather and the Atmosphere (3 Credits) - Students will be introduced to the principles of modern meteorology for nonscience majors, with emphasis on scientific and human issues associated with severe weather events. This includes description, methods of prediction, and impacts of blizzards, hurricanes, thunderstorms, tornadoes, lightning, floods, and firestorms.

ATOC 1060: Our Changing Environment: El Nino, Ozone, and Climate (3 Credits) - This course discusses the Earth's climate for nonscience majors, focusing on the role of the atmosphere, oceans, and land surface. Our Changing Environment: El Nino, Ozone, and Climate describes the water cycle, atmospheric circulations, and ocean currents, and how they influence global climate, El Nino, and the ozone hole. The class will also discuss human impacts from climate change.

ATOC 3300: Analysis of Climate and Weather Observations (3 Credits) - Students will gain a better understanding of the instruments, techniques, and statistical methods used in atmospheric observations. The class covers issues of data accuracy and analysis of weather maps. This course will also provide applications to temperature and precipitation records, weather forecasting, and climate change trends. You'll be using computers to access data sets and process data.

ATOC 3500: Air Chemistry and Pollution (3 Credits) - Students will examine the composition of the atmosphere, and sources of gaseous and particulate pollutants: their chemistry, transport, and removal from the atmosphere. The class applies from general principles to acid rain, smog, and stratospheric ozone depletion.

ATOC 3600: Principles of Climate (3 Credits) - You'll learn a better understanding of the basic components of the climate system: the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere, and lithosphere. The class investigates the basic physical processes that determine climate and link the components of the climate system. Also, Principles of Climate will cover the hydrological cycle and its role in climate, climate stability, and global change. Includes forecasting climate and its application and human dimensions.

ATOC 4215: Oceanography (3 Credits) - This class will Introduce descriptive and dynamical physical oceanography to students, focusing on the nature and dynamics of ocean currents and their role in the distribution of heat and other aspects of ocean physics related to the Earth's climate.

ATOC 4750: Desert Meteorology and Climate (3 Credits) - Introduces students to the dynamic causes of deserts in the context of atmospheric processes and land-surface physics. Discusses desert severe weather, desert microclimates, human impacts and desertification, inter-annual variability in aridity (drought), the effects of deserts on global climate, and the impact of desert climate on humans.

ATOC 5000: Critical Issues in Climate and the Environment (3 Credits) - The course will discuss current issues; such as, ozone depletion, global warming, and air quality. Critical Issues in Climate and the Environment provides students with the scientific background necessary to understand, follow scientific developments, and critically evaluate these issues.

ATOC 5060: Dynamics of the Atmosphere (3 Credits) - This class examines all of the following: Large-scale motions in a stratified rotating atmosphere, and quasi-geostrophic flow, barotropic and baroclinic instabilities, cyclogenesis, global circulations, and boundary layer processes.

ATOC 5410: Fluid Instabilities, Waves, and Turbulence (3 Credits) - Nonlinear waves and instabilities; wave-mean and wave-wave interactions, resonant triads; secondary instability and transition to turbulence; diagnosis, modeling, and parameterization of turbulent flows in geophysics and astrophysics.

ATOC 5600: Physics and Chemistry of Clouds and Aerosols (3 Credits) - Better understand clouds and aerosols. They are ubiquitous in planetary atmospheres, where they impact climate, atmospheric chemistry, remote sensing, and weather. Applies basic microphysical, radiative, and chemical processes affecting particles to issues in current literature.

ATOC 5760: Astrophysical Instrumentation (3 Credits) - The fundamentals underlying the design, construction, and use of instrumentation used for astrophysical research ranging from radio-wavelengths to gamma rays are covered in this course. Topics include: Fourier transforms and their applications; optical design concepts; incoherent and coherent signal detection; electronics and applications; signal acquisition and processing.

ATOC 6100: Predicting Weather and Climate (3 Credits) - This class will discuss background theory and procedures used in weather and climate prediction on a variety of space and time scales. You'll also get an education on the forecasting of weather on time scales of days, error growth in numerical models, prediction of El Nino and monsoon variability, and prediction of the impact of anthropogenic influences on climate.

About the University of Colorado

Little known facts: The school was established back in 1876. Their motto is "Let Your Light Shine". There have been approximately 24,000 undergraduates and 4,000 post-graduates. They were the first to create a new form of matter, called the "Bose-Einstein condensate" which is a few hundred billionths of a degree above absolute zero. They were the first to observe a "fermionic condensate" formed from pairs of atoms in a gas. They discovered a protein in the blood that can prevent the AIDS virus from reproducing and spreading to healthy cells. The university has also accomplished many more things; such as, the creation of a classifying and numbering system for human chromosomes, and the production of computerized 3D images of the entire body in anatomical sections.

University or college location: Boulder, Colorado

Directions to the college or university

From DIA: You will fly in or out of DIA or should I say, Denver International Airport. Driving time between DIA and Boulder is approximately 60 to 90 minutes. From DIA, follow Peña Boulevard (10 miles) south to I-70, and exit onto I-70 west. Follow I-70 west to I-270 west. I-270 merges into U.S. 36 west and takes you west into Boulder (about 23 miles). Exit at Baseline Road; turn left on Broadway and turn right or north. The campus is to the right. For alternate routes, see the map from DIA to Boulder.

From the Denver Area and South: To get to Boulder from the Denver area, go west on U.S. 36 (from I-25 or I-270) and exit at Baseline Road. Turn left (west) on Baseline Road, then right or north on Broadway to campus.

From the North: From the north, take U.S. 287 south to Highway 119. Highway 119 becomes Highway 157 (Foothills Parkway) just north of Boulder. Turn right or west from Foothills Parkway onto Baseline Road. Drive west on Baseline to Broadway, then turn right (north) on Broadway to campus.

From the West: Take I-70 east to U.S. 6. Go east on U.S. 6 to CO. 58. Turn right (east) on CO.58 to CO. 93. Make a left (north) onto CO. 93 towards Boulder. CO. 93 will turn into Broadway once in Boulder. Continue on Broadway west until you see the campus on your right. It will be shortly after you pass Baseline Rd.