Intro

Before you start your first lecture, here are a few things you may want to look at first.

Learning Goals

The lectures are designed for people with no (or minimal) prior knowledge of climatology. Prior knowledge of basic (secondary school level) mathematics, physics, chemistry and geography are a requirement. The overarching learning goals of the “Building a Climate” lecture series are to introduce the student to the most important processes of the climate sytem in a top-down approach. The order of the lectures serve to successively add layers of complexity to your understanding of the climate system, starting from topics like clestial mechanics (large scale) down to precipitation formation (small scale). It is therefore recommended to go through them in the order presented here. Additionally, each lecture has very specific learning goals. A complete list of those for the entire course can be found in the SYLLABUS section.

Feedback

We are very happy to get feedback for this lecutre series during and after class, and we will adapt to maximise learning efficiency and fun! :)

Ask Questions and be Interactive!

Lectures are designed in a way to allow plenty of interaction between teacher and students. You will frequently encounter thought experiments or questions like this:

Note

When you encounter a note like this in the lecture series, it is an invitation for interaction. This can be in the form of students thinking through comments carefully, conduct calculations (or even do online research) to discuss and answer the question with the teacher. Alternatively, it can be seen as an invitation for the teacher to explain the comment in more detail and solve questions on the board with the help of students. It is left up to the teaching environment, teacher and students which form of interaction is the most appropriate.

… now that this is out of the way, you’re good to go!