Chemistry 302: Atmospheric Environmental Chemistry

Instructor Takamasa Momose

Text for this course

• There is no required textbook for the course.

Reference Books

• Introduction to Atmospheric Chemistry, by D. J. Jacob, Princeton University Press, 1999

Outline

1. Measures of Atmospheric Composition: Mixing ratio, number density, and partial pressure.
2. Atmospheric Pressure: Measuring atmospheric pressure, mass of the atmosphere, vertical profiles of pressure and temperature, and Barometric law.
3. Atmosphere Transport: Molecular diffusion, horizontal motion, vertical motion, adiabatic lapse rate, and atmospheric lapse rate.
4. Chemical Kinetics: Rate expressions for gas-phase reactions, chemical equilibrium, photolysis, and radical-assisted reaction chains.
5. Interaction of Solar Radiation with the Earth’s Atmosphere: Bond energies, Beer-Lambert law, photochemistry, rate of photochemical reactions.
6. Stratospheric Chemistry: Kinetics of formation and removal processes in the ozone layer, including catalytic reactions of HOx, NOx, and ClOx, anthropogenic effects, the Antarctic ozone "hole", and UV radiation and health effects.
7. Oxidizing Power of the Troposphere.
8. Ozone Air Pollution.
9. Aerosols.
10. Acid Rain.
11. The Greenhouse Effect: Stefan-Boltzmann law, Wein's law, planetary temperatures, heat fluxes, and the greenhouse effect. Sources and sinks of greenhouse gases (H2O, CO2, CH4, CFC's, N2O), and the effects of aerosols and albedo changes.
12. Energy Balance for Earth-atmosphere: In-coming and out-going radiation; Stefan-Boltzmann law
13. Climate Change and Policy