Chemistry 302: Atmospheric Environmental Chemistry

Text for this course

• Introduction to Atmospheric Chemistry, by D. J. Jacob, Princeton University Press, 1999.
  This book is available at the book store.
  It is also available for reading via the web at the following address:
  http://www-as.harvard.edu/people/faculty/djj/book/index.html.

Reference Books for Parts of the Course

• Chemistry of Atmospheres (third edition) by R. P. Wayne, (Oxford Press) 2000.
• Environmental Chemistry Colin Baird, (Freeman), 1999.
• Chemistry of the Upper and Lower Atmosphere Finlayson-Pitts and Pitts, 2000.
• Chemistry of the Natural Atmosphere by Peter Warneck, 2000.

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. Indoor Air Pollution: Chemicals, radon, asbestos, tobacco smoke, volatile building materials, bacteria, viruses, fungi, etc.