astronomy

McGill Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences

McGill Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand McGill Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences rather than just read about it. In short: The Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences of McGill University is the largest university atmospheric-oceanic sciences group in Canada. In 2012, it has 11 Faculty and 6 Associate Faculty members, 5 support staff, 14 research associates and postdoctoral fellows, and 31 graduate students.

Key takeaways

McGill Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect McGill Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of McGill Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences of McGill University is the largest university atmospheric-oceanic sciences group in Canada. In 2012, it has 11 Faculty and 6 Associate Faculty members, 5 support staff, 14 research associates and postdoctoral fellows, and 31 graduate students. It is known worldwide, in particular for weather radar research and Arctic studies. It has operated the second oldest weather observatory in Canada since 1862.

History Since 1840, Charles Smallwood, a medical doctor and avid amateur meteorologist, was taking daily weather reports at his house in the village of Saint-Martin on Île Jésus (now Laval a suburb of Montreal). He was named "honorary professor" in Meteorology at McGill University in 1856, and at his suggestion, the first McGill Weather Observatory was established in 1862. The first instruments were donated by Smallwood et he was the first director of the Observatory. Since then, there is regular measurement of meteorological variables taken on University grounds, one of the longest record in Canada. After the death of Smallwood in 1873, the position of professor in Meteorology was not filled for 88 years. However, the director of the Observatory was, and the second to occupy this post was the engineer C. H. McLeod, an assistant to Smallwood since his university days. McLeod began his term while Canada was setting up a Meteorological Service. He was instrumental to its development and to research on the subject by McGill. Professors of the McGill's Physics department began to work on meteorological projects and later, professors from Geography did too. Following the Second World War, two active atmospheric research groups emerged at McGill. Dr J. Stewart Marshall and R.H. Douglas led a radar meteorology group (Stormy Weather Group) in the Physics Department, and Dr F. Kenneth Hare directed an arctic meteorology program in Geography. These two groups united in 1959 to form the Department of Meteorology. In 1986, McGill University formed the first Canadian group of research on climate with the National Research Council of Canada (CNRC). Four years later, the mandate was widened, and its staffing enlarged. It is now the Centre for Climate and Global Change Research (C2GCR). The department started the Centre for research in mesoscale meteorology, in collaboration with the Meteorological Service of Canada, and it operates J. S. Marshall Radar Observatory since 1968. Since 1850, McGill has been involved in oceanography but the main development in this field came when the Centre for Marine Studies was created in 1963, later renamed Oceanographical Institute. Under the leadership of Dr Max J. Dunbar, the Institute was managing Master and Doctorate programs in physical oceanography, and marine biology. In 1987, the Institute because the McGill department of Oceanography. In January 1992, the Meteorology department became the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences when the Oceanography department merged with it. Since its creation, the department has been a Canadian leader in the training of many distinguished atmospheric scientists. McGill has awarded over 230 M.Sc. degrees and more than 80 Ph.D. degrees in this field.

Programs The department offers a BSc degree, with courses in atmospheric dynamics, thermodynamics and chemistry, in cloud physics, in climatology and general oceanography. The students maybe follow training toward research, a teaching, or operational meteorologist. The department offers one year certificates for students coming from other departments, like physics, to pursue M.Sc. and Ph.D. programs in meteorology and oceanography. In M.Sc. and Ph.D., the speciality are:

Atmospheric chemistry Dynamics of climates and paleoclimates Physical meteorology physique and cloud physics Atmospheric dynamics and synoptic scale meteorology Data analysis and numerical weather predictions Convection and other severe weather Fluid dynamics and turbulence Physical oceanography Weather radar and remote sensing of precipitation

See also Burnside Hall J.S. Marshall Radar Observatory Weather radar

External links Official website

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with McGill Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what McGill Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to McGill Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about McGill Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of McGill Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences

In research: McGill Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses McGill Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: McGill Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1959 establishments in Quebec, Departments and schools of McGill University, Meteorological research institutes, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for McGill Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study McGill Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what McGill Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain McGill Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is McGill Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences in simple terms?

Why does McGill Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study McGill Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on McGill Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences.