Problem sheets and solutions from 2005

Problem sheets for 2006

Environmental Physics (2B27) Course

Course Summary

This half-unit is designed to illustrate the many aspects of physics that pervade environmental processes in our everyday lives and in naturally occurring phenomena. It will be largely a descriptive course though some basic mathematical skills are necessary to gain a full understanding of some parts of the course. Students taking this course should ideally therefore have a knowledge of basic calculus. Students should also have a basic knowledge of physics to at least ‘A’ level standard although the course is equally accessible to Physical Science students who have taken the ‘Foundations of Physics’ courses.

Continuous assessment plays an important part of the assessment of this course. 20% of the total marks arise from continuous assessment. A single two and a half hour examination is held in the third Term to evaluate the student’s understanding of the taught material. Only material covered in the assigned lectures is examinable. Course books

The main course book is Environmental Physics by N.J. Mason and Hughes, Taylor and Francis (1999). This covers almost all the material that you will need for this course. There are a number of other books that you might wish to consult on specific points of the course

• Environmental Science; D.B. Botkin and E.A. Keller, Wiley (1998)
• Fundamentals of Weather and Climate R. McIlveen, Chapman and Hall (1992)
• Renewable energy Resources J. Twidell and T. Weir, E & F.N. Spon (1986)
• Energy efficiency (for engineers and technologists) T.D. Eastop and D.R. Croft (Longman 1990)

Course notes

• Syllabus

• Structure of the atmosphere
• Atmospheric pollution
• Solar radiation and the atmosphere
• The hydrologic cycle
• Groundwater flow

• Winds and wind systems
• Energy and resources
• The problem of noise
• Sprites, elves and Blue Jets

Energy and the enviroment - transparencies

• Energy and the enviromentn introductory notes
• Solar power
• Wind power
• Hydroelectric, tidal and wave power

• Nuclear Power
• Biomass and Geothermal power
• Conclusions

These documents are .rtf files - they can be read by Microsoft WORD or directly into an editor. (A diagram showing sprites elves and blue jets is also available to go with the notes above.)

The long essay

The long essay is an essential part of this course. It accounts for 10% of the continuous assessment. If you do not submit an essay, you may be declared "not complete" on this module and receive zero credit, regardless of your performance in the written examination unless there are extenuating circumstances. You should write the essay, with a length of approx. 3500 words, for a scientifically literate person who has no special knowledge of the subject you have chosen. Please note the remarks on the subjects of acknowledging all sources of information that you use. The College has strict rules on the subject of plagiarism.

In past years essays have been written on a wide range of subjects. These have included: the desert environment, hurricanes and tropical storms, controlling the environment in manned space stations, the ionosphere, insulating the new practice rooms at the Royal Academy of Music, the effects of global warming, wave power, the oceans, geothermal energy, weather forecasting, energy conservation in student houses, the environmental impact of dams, photosynthesis, the ozone layer, clearing up oil spills. This list is not complete and you certainly should not feel that you ought to choose a subject from it. You are welcome to choose a subject that has been covered in the course, but if you do I want to see evidence of more work than simply copying the notes into an essay!

Problem sheets and solutions

Please make sure that you put both your name and the name of your tutor / (if you have one) on the top of your answer sheets. 2005 Question sheets

• 1st Problem Sheet Given on 27 Jan 2005, the deadline for handing in work for this question sheet is February 10th
• Model answers for the first problem sheet are unfortunately not available at this time:
• 2nd Problem Sheet Given on 17th February, the deadline for handing in work for this question sheet is March 3rd `
• Model answers for the second problem sheet:
• 3rd Problem Sheet Given out on March 17th, the deadline for handing in work for this question sheet is April 25th (start of next term)
• Model answers for the third problem sheet as a postscript file:
• Model answers for the third problem sheet as a pdf file:

2006 Question sheets

Past examination papers

Previous examination papers can be found on the library website You should note that there is a change in the rubric to the examination this year compared with some previous years. In early examinations, the rubric read Answer SIX questions from section A and THREE questions from section B , giving you a choice of six questions out of a possible eight in section A. This year the rubric will be Answer ALL SIX questions from section A and THREE questions from section B There will be 5 questions in section B from which to choose your 3. Links to useful material

The web contains an immense amount of material on this subject. Some of it is excellent. Some of it is biased, unreliable or simply wrong. It is risky to use the web as your only source of information. That said, here is a list of some of the websites that I have found helpful.

• Physics of the atmosphere

  • BBC weather site gives good basic information (and also the Weather forecasts although the Met. Office is better for this)
  • Weather World 2010 contains a large archive of material including some good tutorials on meteorology.

  • Met Office website Obviously the weather but the site also has good material on tropical storms and the Research Section ( Hadley Research Centre ) has a good discussion of climate change. You can take part in their climate modelling programme - run your own climate model!
  • International Climate Change Panel . contains a large number of their reports in the publications section. These tend to be full reports; there is not a lot of introductory material.
  • UK Climates Impact Programme . gives an assessment of the effect of global warming on the UK.

  • US Weather Service . As it says; also everything you might want to know about hurricanes and tornadoes.
  • Monsoon on Line Monsoon information, particularly on predicting monsoons.
  • US Environmental Protection Agency Good collection of US data on acid rain, urban pollution and other environmental issues.
  • UK Department of the Environment (Environment Section of DEFRA) There is a lot of data (look under airquality for example) but it is not always easy to find it. The

    Environment Agency website seems to be a better way in.

  • The TOMS satellite is the place to find out about current ozone levels. Also access to other satellite data.
  • The Arizona Photosynthesis Center has a lot of material on photosynthesis including a good basic introduction.

• Physics of the ocean

  • Smithsonian Museum "Ocean Planet" exhibit This has not been updated since 1995 but it is still a good introduction to the subject.
  • Southampton Oceanography Centre is a good place to find out what is happening in the UK.
  • US Oceanographic Service A good deal of information, including everything you want to know (or don't) about sharks.

• Energy demand and energy supply
  • US Department of Energy See if you can work out what the US Energy policy is. But also a lot of information on energy and related topics.
  • UK Department of Energy The list of links is quite useful and the summary data on UK energy use in their statistics section is worth a look.

• Energy production and conservation
  • Nuclear power website. Not attached to the industry, but unashamedly pro. The most comprehensive collection of information that I have found.
  • The UK fusion site Also links to other fusion sites.
  • US Office of Energy and Efficiency Also information on renewables. The

    UK Government site gives links to the various UK programmes.

  • Danish Wind Industry Association The tour gives a good basic introduction to the winds. Also a lot of information on wind turbines. For the position in Britain, see the website of the British Wind Energy Association .
  • Southampton's Solar Energy Research page . This link gives a good introduction to the physics of solar cells.

  • The Edinburgh wavepower group site will give the current position on wavepower research. An introduction to the pilot plant on Islay is on the Wavegen site
  • The Centre for Alternative Technology is the most useful of the 'green' sites. It has basic information on a range of renewables. The links section gives a wide range of good sites.

-- MarkSutton - 02 Feb 2006