SO503 Spring 2005

Lecture Syllabus (4/18/2005)

Course home page Labs Shows & Readings (USNA only)

Fri	01/07/05	Course introduction
Mon	01/10/05	Scientific societies Visit these web sites, and come to class ready to discuss the functions of a scientific society: AGU GSA AMS	Discuss the role of scientific professional societies in holding meetings, publishing papers, and publishing newsletters. Describe the funding of scientific research with grants, and the difference between "hard" and "soft" money. Understand the role of "big science" versus individual research projects. Know the major funding agencies for earth sciences: NSF and ONR, and the difference between NRL and ONR.
Wed	01/12/05	Scientific writing and presentations	Discuss the importance of priority in scientific research, and the role of refereed and peer reviewed journals. Understand the importance of abstracts, and the need for clear, concise, and informative abstracts. Describe the importance of oral and poster presentations for scientific research.
Mon	01/17/05	MLK Birthday
Wed	01/19/05	Anatomy of a Scientific Paper Paper Appendix	Discuss the parts of a scientific paper Discuss the citation style used in science, and the preponderance of journal articles in the references cited Discuss the weaving of geology, biology, climatology, and GIS in this paper's tracing of past climates.
Mon	01/24/05	Tsunami papers from EOS Personal account Equations supplement Photos Committee report	Discuss the kinds of papers published in EOS, and how these examples compare to a regular journal Discuss the observations of the tsuname, and the effort to apply the wave equation to the results Discuss the challenges in setting up a tsunami observation system
Wed	01/26/05	EOS from 18 Jan 2005	Discuss how to read want ads for science jobs Discuss the studies to monitor Mt St Helens
Mon	01/31/05	Comp time for noon excusal
Tues	02/01/05	Noon excusal list and meeting in RI332 on research topics
Wed	02/02/05	EOS from 25 Jan 2005--operational oceanography http://surfouest.free.fr/WOO2003/	Discuss how improved wave forecasting will help operational oceanography and how coupled ocean-atmosphere models might help. Describe the role of remote sensing in wave forecasting.
Mon	02/07/05	Remote sensing Handout MICRODEM help file	Understand the relationships among wavelength, bandwidth, radiometric resolution, spatial resolution, and signal to noise ratio, and how these vary with position in the electromagnetic spectrum. Discuss the tradeoffs involved with increasing spatial resolution. Discuss the reasons why remote sensing concentrates on certain parts of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Wed	02/09/05	Remote sensing Visible Earth Earth Observatory
Mon	02/14/05	EOS--Megathrust earthquake and Indian Ocean tsunami	Discuss how this earthqake provided the first test of the new earthquake recording system. Differentiate the Richter and Mercalli scales, and discuss why more than one magnitude scale has been used.
Wed	02/16/05	Spectral measurement	Disucss the uses of a radiometer in scientific studies. Explain the use of a spectral reflectance curve to determine surface materials.
Mon	02/21/05	Presidents Day
Wed	02/23/05	Exam 1
Mon	02/28/05	Time series
Wed	03/02/05	Time series 2
Mon	03/07/05	Time series 3	Differentiate lossy and lossless compression
Wed	03/09/05	Web searches
Mon	03/14/05	Spring Break
Wed	03/16/05	Spring Break
Mon	03/28/05	Tsunami danger in the Caribbean
Wed	03/30/05	Geologic tides and time series PowerPoint Paper Appendix	Discuss the use of time series analysis to seek tidal signatures in rocks in 10 million years old. Dissuss how the structure of the observed data constrains the findings.
Mon	04/04/05	PowerPoint
Wed	04/06/05	PowerPoint Douglas & Peltier, Physics Today, March 2002
Mon	04/11/05	PowerPoint 1 PowerPoint 2 NASA goals 1 NASA goals 2
Wed	04/13/05	Exam 2	Paper topic sentence and correctly formatted reference list due.
Mon	04/18/05	Scientific Graphics Tufte summary Powerpoint	Understand the challenge for earth scientists to place multiple dimensions of data on a 2D display. Resist the urge to use "chart junk" to make a graph more complex than needed Discuss the case study on the shuttle Challenger's O-rings, and how a lack of focus on the graphics presented contributed to the decision to launch
Wed	04/27/05	Course Review	Final Paper