Contents
Preface i
Contents 2
1 Getting Started 3
1.1 Basic Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.1.1 Using xterms and logging in to the server . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.1.2 About the Python Shell and idle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.1.3 Running Python Locally . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.2 Fun with Python . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.2.1 Basic operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.2.2 Lists, tuples and strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.2.3 Modules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.2.4 Getting help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.2.5 Program control: Looping, conditionals and functions . . . . . 12
1.3 Progressing in Python . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
1.3.1 Writing your own modules and executable scripts . . . . . . . 17
1.3.2 List comprehension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1.3.3 Using objects in Python . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1.3.4 The Numeric array package . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
1.3.5 The Curve object and its uses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
1.4 Advanced Python Topics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
1.4.1 Defining your own objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
v
, 1.4.2 Dictionaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
1.4.3 Writing text data to files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
1.4.4 Reading text data from a file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
2 Thermodynamics and vertical structure 39
2.1 Tutorial: Getting physical properties and constants . . . . . . . . . . 40
2.2 Problem set: Dry thermodynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
2.2.1 Pressure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
2.2.2 Ideal gas law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
2.2.3 Atmospheric composition and mixing ratios . . . . . . . . . . 42
2.2.4 Specific heat: Some basic problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
2.2.5 Temperature-dependent specific heat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
2.2.6 Potential Temperature and the Dry Adiabat . . . . . . . . . . 43
2.2.7 Inhomogeneous mixtures; Potential density and ”virtual tem-
perature” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
2.3 Data Lab: Analysis of temperature profile data . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
2.3.1 Analysis of tropical Earth soundings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
2.3.2 Analysis of midlatitude Earth soundings . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
2.3.3 Analysis of planetary soundings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
2.4 Tutorial: Numerical solution of differential equations . . . . . . . . . 48
2.5 Problem set: Hydrostatics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
2.5.1 Mass of carbon in the Earth’s atmosphere . . . . . . . . . . . 52
2.5.2 Mass of Titan’s atmosphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
2.5.3 The dry adiabatic lapse rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
2.5.4 Heat capacity of atmospheric columns . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
2.6 Problem set: Moist thermodynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
2.6.1 Latent heat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
2.6.2 Using the simplified form of the Clausius-Clapeyron relation . 53
2.6.3 Methane on Titan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
2.6.4 Boiling vs. evaporation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
vi
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2.6.5 Comparison of idealized vs. empirical saturation vapor pressure 55
2.6.6 Variable latent heat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
2.6.7 Latent heat from Clausius-Clapeyron . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
2.6.8 Water content of the atmosphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
2.6.9 CO2 condensation in the Martian Winter . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
2.6.10 CO2 condensation on Snowball Earth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
2.6.11 Moist adiabat for atmosphere with two condensible components 58
2.6.12 Springtime for Europa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
2.7 Computation Lab: Computing the moist adiabat . . . . . . . . . . . 59
2.8 Problem set: Rayleigh fractionation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
3 Elementary radiation balance problems 61
4 Continuous atmosphere radiation problems 63
5 Radiative-convective model problems 65
6 Scattering problems 67
7 Data analysis problems: Earth radiation budget 69
8 Surface energy budget problems 71
9 Seasonal Cycle problems 73
10 Atmospheric evolution modelling problems 75
11 Meridional heat transport modelling problems 77
12 Appendix A: Hints for the user of Unix and its relatives 79
12.1 Simple Unix for the masses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
12.2 A few useful Unix utilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
12.3 Nasty Unix stuff I hope you won’t have to deal with . . . . . . . . . . 80
12.4 Public domain software to install on the server . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
, 2
12.5 Installing the courseware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Preface i
Contents 2
1 Getting Started 3
1.1 Basic Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.1.1 Using xterms and logging in to the server . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.1.2 About the Python Shell and idle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.1.3 Running Python Locally . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.2 Fun with Python . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.2.1 Basic operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.2.2 Lists, tuples and strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.2.3 Modules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.2.4 Getting help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.2.5 Program control: Looping, conditionals and functions . . . . . 12
1.3 Progressing in Python . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
1.3.1 Writing your own modules and executable scripts . . . . . . . 17
1.3.2 List comprehension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1.3.3 Using objects in Python . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1.3.4 The Numeric array package . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
1.3.5 The Curve object and its uses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
1.4 Advanced Python Topics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
1.4.1 Defining your own objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
v
, 1.4.2 Dictionaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
1.4.3 Writing text data to files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
1.4.4 Reading text data from a file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
2 Thermodynamics and vertical structure 39
2.1 Tutorial: Getting physical properties and constants . . . . . . . . . . 40
2.2 Problem set: Dry thermodynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
2.2.1 Pressure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
2.2.2 Ideal gas law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
2.2.3 Atmospheric composition and mixing ratios . . . . . . . . . . 42
2.2.4 Specific heat: Some basic problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
2.2.5 Temperature-dependent specific heat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
2.2.6 Potential Temperature and the Dry Adiabat . . . . . . . . . . 43
2.2.7 Inhomogeneous mixtures; Potential density and ”virtual tem-
perature” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
2.3 Data Lab: Analysis of temperature profile data . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
2.3.1 Analysis of tropical Earth soundings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
2.3.2 Analysis of midlatitude Earth soundings . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
2.3.3 Analysis of planetary soundings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
2.4 Tutorial: Numerical solution of differential equations . . . . . . . . . 48
2.5 Problem set: Hydrostatics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
2.5.1 Mass of carbon in the Earth’s atmosphere . . . . . . . . . . . 52
2.5.2 Mass of Titan’s atmosphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
2.5.3 The dry adiabatic lapse rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
2.5.4 Heat capacity of atmospheric columns . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
2.6 Problem set: Moist thermodynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
2.6.1 Latent heat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
2.6.2 Using the simplified form of the Clausius-Clapeyron relation . 53
2.6.3 Methane on Titan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
2.6.4 Boiling vs. evaporation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
vi
, 1
2.6.5 Comparison of idealized vs. empirical saturation vapor pressure 55
2.6.6 Variable latent heat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
2.6.7 Latent heat from Clausius-Clapeyron . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
2.6.8 Water content of the atmosphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
2.6.9 CO2 condensation in the Martian Winter . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
2.6.10 CO2 condensation on Snowball Earth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
2.6.11 Moist adiabat for atmosphere with two condensible components 58
2.6.12 Springtime for Europa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
2.7 Computation Lab: Computing the moist adiabat . . . . . . . . . . . 59
2.8 Problem set: Rayleigh fractionation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
3 Elementary radiation balance problems 61
4 Continuous atmosphere radiation problems 63
5 Radiative-convective model problems 65
6 Scattering problems 67
7 Data analysis problems: Earth radiation budget 69
8 Surface energy budget problems 71
9 Seasonal Cycle problems 73
10 Atmospheric evolution modelling problems 75
11 Meridional heat transport modelling problems 77
12 Appendix A: Hints for the user of Unix and its relatives 79
12.1 Simple Unix for the masses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
12.2 A few useful Unix utilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
12.3 Nasty Unix stuff I hope you won’t have to deal with . . . . . . . . . . 80
12.4 Public domain software to install on the server . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
, 2
12.5 Installing the courseware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
