Climate change (Class of 2020)

One of the international exchange courses, Tokyo Metropolitan University

Note [2020-05-29]: This course is cancelled, because no students enrolled.

Time: Academic year 2020, 1st semester (April May-July 2020), Thursday 13:00-14:30

Place: Minami-Osawa campus, but mainly on-line

[Syllabus]

Note: Correspondence between date (mentioned in the syllabus) and content may change during the course.

Note [2020-05-20] The lecture session of 14 May failed, because no students connected to the "zoom" meeting I opened. I plan to open a "zoom" meeting again on 21 May, at 13:00. To students who are interested in the lecture: please connect to the "zoom" meeting. If you cannot, please send me an e-mail message.

Note [2020-05-05, updated 2020-05-14]:

• We must adapt to changing situation of the university library and of the telecommuniation systems. Probably we cannot make reading assignments as planned in the syllabus. I will try to make some substitutes. There is a good news that Cambridge University Press makes on-line version of some of their textbooks available to universities free of charge, and the textbook I want to use (Dessler: "Introduction to Modern Climate Change") is included in the list. But there is a bad news that its term of free access will end at 29 June (2020-06-29) [revised 2020-05-14]. We will use on-line version of the textbook as far as possible. I have added instructions how to access the on-line textbook to the page of [Information of books]. (Follow the link below.)

[Information of books] (to be updated frequently)

Schedule and course materials

• This section will be updated weekly, both before and after lectures.
• Sometimes, materials which have appeared on this page will later be replaced with links to other pages.
• [x] Links to pages made by other people than the lecturer.
• [r] Links to pages with restricted access.
• I will also use "kibaco" system of TMU. Please register to the system, and find "Climate change" at "Thu 3" in your time table.
• In addition, a page is prepared in my personal blog to receive questions and comments. [A page for conversation in the "climate change" class in TMU, 1st semester 2020 @ macroscope (blog)]
• I usually prepare course materials on Wednesday and finish around noon of Thursday.

• 14 May 21 May: Introduction
  • An interactive session, starting at 13:00 Japan Standard Time. (If you cannot connect at this time slot, please send me an e-mail message.) I plan to finish lecture in about 30 minutes, but I will hold the zoom session until 14:30 so that you can make questions and comments there.
  • How to use the on-line version of the textbook (See [Information of books]page)
  • [What is climate? What is the climate system?]
  • [Physical quantities and SI units] (included in order to explain what are "latitude" and "longitude". Please ignore the rest until I revise it.)
  • [Questions to students]
  • Some documents about the textbook (Dessler: Introduction ...)
    • [A detailed table of contents]
    • [Masuda's memo about the book (English version)]
  • [My comments (to the readers) about the Chapter 1 of the textbook]
  • Reading assignment
    • Read Chapter 1 of the textbook ("Introduction to Modern Climate Change"), and try to understand what I (Masuda) meant in my introduction.
    • Read Chapter 2 of the textbook, to be ready for the next lecture.
• 28 May
• 4 June
• 11 June
• 18 June
• 25 June
• 2 July
• 9 July
• 16 July
• 23 July

Course materials of the previous year

Notes about languages

• A personal note on Romanization of Japanese words
• To transpose or not tranpose ... personal names

About the lecturer

• Masuda 増田 (family name), Kooiti 耕一 (personal name)
• Department of Geography, visiting professor
• Office: Building 8, Room 773 (This semester, I come to the office very rarely.)
• e-mail address (about classes) : masudak (the rest is as the same as most professors of TMU)
• Personal web site: http://macroscope.world.coocan.jp
• Discipline: meteorology (part of geophysics)
• Achivements: global energy and water cycle in the atmosphere and the hydrosphere
• Recent interests: climate - society interactions, climate in the historical past