Introduction to Atmospheric Chemistry

Fall 2011

Welcome to the course web page.
Below are links to all week-long topics I will cover in this class. Make sure you access the material more than once at the beginning of the semester as I will probably work on updates of older material.
I will post the homework/exam answers and result statistics here.

Note that I use italic font to mark often-used terminology, and underline or bold font to highlight importance.

Class Syllabus

Policies

homework postings

Graduate student Michelle Ramotowski is the grader for this class. Please include her (micheller2@tamu.edu) in your homework submissions via e-mail. If you submit your homework in written format (necessary at times), please take it to Michelle in room 1007.

Schedule:

1^st week: Electrons and chemical bonding, LCAO-MO theory

2^nd week: Radiation and Spectroscopy review, O₂ and O₃ spectra

3^rd week: Kinetics; Basic atmo-chemistry reactions; lifetimes

4^th week: Atmospheric CO, CH₄, and NO_x budgets

5^th week: NO_x and HO_x cycling in the Troposphere

6^th week: Analytical instrumentation for basic air quality measurements

7^th week: Review of Organic chemistry and MO theory of organic molecules

8^th week: Tropospheric hydrocarbon chemistry, Photochemical Smog

9^th week: Atmospheric Sulfur Chemistry, Sulfur Cycle

10^th week: Atmospheric Aerosols I

11^th/12^th week: Atmospheric Aerosols II, Atmospheric Ammonia,

12^th/13^th week: Stratospheric Chemistry I, Stratospheric Chemistry II

13^th/14^th week: Ozone Hole Chemistry

Happy Thanksgiving!