Introduction to dynamic and synoptic meteorology

The course offers an introduction to the physical and dynamical processes, which are the basis for understanding weather across different scales, with particular focus to mid-latitude weather systems. The course topics provide the knowledge to perform meteorological and numerical analyses, to diagnose and understand the past, present and future weather. The students will become familiar with the main weather phenomena at both mesoscale and synoptic scale, and with the physical variables involved in those phenomena.

At the end of the course, the student acquires a basic understanding of weather systems and their dynamics, and becomes able to: - provide order-of-magnitude estimates to atmospheric variables and balances; - analyse and interpret weather maps; - describe the dynamics of weather systems on the synoptic and meso-scale, and the associated phenomena; - monitor the weather evolution and make a simple forecast especially for high-impact weather events; - account for processes influencing the development of high and low pressure systems; - account for the effect that the Earth's surface has on the atmospheric circulation.