Fall 2005 Climate Seminar

Monsoons: Past, Present, Future

 

Instructors: Cobb, Fu, Lynch-Stieglitz, Webster

 

Location: ES&T 1229 (first floor seminar room)

 

Who should take this seminar for credit (1 credit):  Graduate students with interests in the past, present or future climate in areas affected by monsoons

 

Who is welcome to participate:  All students, post-docs, faculty and staff who are interested

 

Scope:  We will cover the basics of monsoon circulation, examine various paleoclimatic approaches to the reconstruction of monsoon circulation (oceanographic records, cave deposits, lake records), and look at how monsoons might change as CO2 rises in the atmosphere.  There will be an emphasis on the Asian Monsoon, but we will also consider examples from other monsoon systems.

 

Format:  This is a seminar, and the emphasis will be on discussion of the literature. There will also be some background lectures delivered by the faculty.  Most weeks there will be one or two assigned readings, and one graduate student will be selected to lead the discussion.  The discussion leader will be responsible for summarizing key points of paper, reproduction of key figures (powerpoint is easiest), providing supplementary information relevant to the paper and leading the discussion.  It is absolutely essential that all students have read the papers before class and come prepared with questions and points for discussion.

 

Website:  All papers will be posted on the website

 

Grading: Based on participation in discussion and leading discussion.

 

 

Aug 22              Organizational Class

 

Aug 29              Introduction to Monsoons (Webster Lecture)

               Encyclopedia of Atmospheric Sciences-1    Encyclopedia of Atmospheric Sciences-2

 

Sept 5                 Labor Day – no class

 

Sept 12              Controls on Quaternary monsoons (L-S mini-lecture)

               Kutzbach (1981) errata

 

Sept 19              Ocean feedbacks   Tim Nowak

               Liu et al. (2003)  

 

Sept 26              Modern South Asian Monsoon   Jason Furtado

               Webster et al. (1998) (excerpts)

PeterŐs suggestions: I would concentrate on sections 1 and 2.1 noting Figure 9 (lateral

smonsoon) and perhaps reference Figure 27. The two components of the monsoon

(east-west and north-south) are important for the interpretation  of data.

Note also section 2.2 and 2.2.22 and 2.2.23: ignore the intraseasonal.

 

Oct 3                   Arabian Sea upwelling paleo-records (orbital)   Dana Ionita

               Clemens and Prell (2003)

 

Oct 10                Pakistan margin paleo-records (millennial)   Intan Nurhati

               Schulz et al. (1998)

Oct 17                Fall recess-  no class

 

Oct 24                Modern East Asian Monsoon   Paula Agudelo

               Yihui and Chan (2005)

 

Oct 28              Departmental Seminar:  Dr. Paul Baker, Duke University

                              "Understanding tropical climate change on time-scales from decades to millions of years."

 

Oct 31                Chinese cave records           Jud Partin

               Wang et al. (2001), Yuan et al. (2004)

 

Nov 7                 South China Sea records    Andrea Steinberger

               Wang et al. (1999)

              

Nov 14              Future monsoon (SST impact)   Marilee Roell

Ashrit et al. (2001) primary

               Palmer and Raisanen (2002) optional

              

 

Nov 21              Future monsoon (Aerosol – 2 papers)   Carlos Hoyos

               Menon et al. (2002)  Cheng et al. (2005)

              

Nov 28              Future monsoon (CO2)  Sara Vieira

               Meehl and Arblaster (2003)

              

Dec 5                  AGU week