University of Alberta
EAS 270: Textbook Sections Excluded from Examination, 2011
While you may find it interesting to read this "excluded" material, its listing here implies that no exam/quiz question will be based on the designated section of the textbook. In some cases however, the subject of that textbook section will have been covered in one of the lecture PDFs. Except where instructor's slides carry a banner with the statement "Not Examinable," they are considereed examinable.
You are not expected to remember the names of scientists or authors whose portraits have been clipped into some of the lecture files, nor details of their lives.
- Exclusions from Chapter 1
- The Mesosphere and Thermosphere
- The Ionosphere
- Brief History of Meteorology
- Billion-Dollar Weather Disasters
- Exclusions from Chapter 2
- Exclusions from Chapter 3
- Spatial Distribution of Solar Radiation (Fig. 3-7)
- Measurement of temperature
- Some Useful Temperature Indices (Wind chill; degree days)
- Recent Severe Heat Waves (Sec. 3-3)
- Exclusions from Chapter 4
- Measuring Pressure (but you should be aware of the practise of correcting surface pressure for elevation above sea-level -- as covered in lecture slides)
- Sec 4-6 Strong Winds and the Little Rock, Arkansas, Air Disaster
- Exclusions from Chapter 5
- Distribution of water vapor
- Section 5-2 "Vertical Profiles of Moisture"
- Measuring humidity
- High humidities and human discomfort
- Distribution of fog
- Exclusions from Chapter 6
- Section 6-2 Potential Instability
Names of cloud sub-types (as listed in Table 6-2)
- Exclusions from Chapter 7
- Measuring Precipitation
- Cloud Seeding
- Exclusions from Chapter 8
- Section 8-2 "The Movement of Rossby Waves"
- Monsoons
- Pacific Decadal Oscillation
- Arctic Oscillation
- Exclusions from Chapter 9
- Sec. 9-1 Special Interest "Maritime air masses invade eastern North America"
- Sec. 9-2 Special Interest "The Pineapple Express"
- Exclusions from Chapter 10
- Section 10-2 "A closer look at Divergence and Convergence"
- An Example of a Midlatitude Cyclone
- Exclusions from Chapter 11
- Runaway Discharges
- Geographic and temporal distribution of thunderstorms
- The location and timing of tornadoes
- Trends in US tornado occurrence
- Fatalities
- Exclusions from Chapter 12
- All references to/quotations from Conrad's short story "Typhoon" used in lecture are non-examinable
- Naming Hurricanes
- Sec. 12-2 "2004 and 2005: Two Historic Hurricane Seasons"
- Hurricane Destruction and fatalities
- Sec. 12-3 "Hurricane Katrina"
- Tables 12-2, 12-3
- Sections. 12-4, 12-5, 12-6
- Exclusions from Chapter 13
Note: much of the material in this chapter has been covered in advance.
- Sec 13-1 Special Interest: Modernization of the National Weather Service
- Sec 13-2 Special Interest: Television weather segments
- Lifted Index & K-index
- No need to remember the specific attributes of the three American Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models as listed in the Appendix. However you should cover the general principles explained.
- Measures of Forecast Accuracy & Skill (this is a section of the Appendix)
- Exclusions from Chapter 15
- Climate classification is rather peripheral to our course. Exam question(s), if any, would be drawn from material conveyed in the lecture file for Chapter 15, rather than from the textbook itself.
- Exclusions from Chapter 16
- The Last Glacial Maximum
- The Holocene
- Annular Modes
- The mechanism of Greenhouse Warming
- Projecting Climate Change
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Last Modified: 1 Dec. 2011