The preliminary syllabus for the next academic year will be published
See recommended previous knowledge and skills for this track in the end of the page.
Personal study plan (0 cr) (included in ATM301)
Select either
Select either
You can complete whole course packages or singular courses.
Data Science
Select at most one of the following courses:
Take the compulsory prerequisite courses FYS2031-FYS2035 if these courses or courses with the same contents are not include to your previous studies.
In addition to the compulsory prerequisite courses other studies can include study modules or courses from other programmes or courses from other study tracks. Also practical training and language studies can be included in other studies.
Generally, good knowledge of bachelor's degree level physics and mathematical methods are needed as well as practical skills in scientific computing (e.g., Python). In order to successfully pursue Master's studies in the meteorology study track it is recommended that you have the following knowledge and skills before entering to the programme:
In case you have not completed University of Helsinki's courses
Contents of these five meteorology courses:
FYS2031 Introduction to Meteorology and Weather Observations (5 cr)
• Meteorology as a field of science: basic concepts, research questions and approaches to solving them
• Structure and composition of the atmosphere
• Basics of atmospheric radiation transfer and the global energy budget
• Overview of global climate and atmospheric general circulation
• Application of basic physical principles to atmosphere: the primitive equations
• Geostrophic balance
• Hydrostatic stability
• Water in the atmosphere and precipitation processes
• Principles of weather predictions
• Climate changes and climate variability
• Classification of clouds
FYS2032 Atmospheric thermodynamics (5 cr)
• Thermodynamics of dry air: Ideal gas equation of state, first law of thermodynamics, adiabatic processes, potential energy, entropy, thermodynamic diagrams
• Thermodynamics of moist air: Different ways of expressing the water vapour content of air; virtual temperature; specific heats for moist air, adiabatic processes in undersaturated air.
• Thermodynamics of saturated air: Clausius-Clapeyron equation, pseudo-adiabatic and moist-adiabatic processes
• Hydrostatic balance
• Geopotential
• Hydrostatic stability, air parcel method for studying convection, Brunt-Väisälä frequency, conditional instability, levels of free convection and neutral buoyancy, CAPE
FYS2033 Introduction to atmospheric flow dynamics (10 cr)
• Real and apparent forced affecting the motion of an air parcel on a rotating planet
• Vertical distribution of pressure in the atmosphere, as derived from the requirement of hydrostatic balance. The use of pressure as a vertical coordinate. Geopotential.
• Eulerian and Lagrangian frameworks in meteorology.
• Advection.
• Equation of motion in complete vector and component form in spherical coordinates
• Scale analysis of the equation of motion
• Rossby number.
• Continuity equation
• Primitive equations in pressure coordinates
• Baroclinic vs. barotropic atmosphere
• Thermal wind
• Trajectories and streamlines
• Kinematic and adiabatic methods for estimating vertical motion
• Components of the ageostrophic wind: isallobaric, advective, convective, frictional
• Circulation, absolute vorticity and relative vorticity
• Potential vorticity, and consequences of its quasi-conservation
• Vorticity equation
• Stream function and velocity potential
• Secondary circulation in the atmospheric boundary layer.
• Ekman pumping
FYS2034 Introduction to climatology (2 cr)
• The main physical and geographical factors affecting climate
• Global geographical distributions
• Climate classification systems (particularly Köppen’s climate classification)
• Climate in Finland
FYS2035 Physical climatology (3 cr)
• Transfer of solar and terrestrial radiation in the atmosphere
• Radiative balance: surface, atmosphere, surface and atmosphere together
• Variation of temperature in soil
• Sensible and latent heat fluxes
• Cycle of water in the surface-atmosphere system
• Energy budgets of surface and atmosphere
• Formation of the vertical temperature distribution in the atmosphere
• The climatic history of Earth
• Energy budget view on climate variability
• Effects of deforestation and desertification on climate