Environmental Systems
Course: McGill GEOG 203
The Arctic, climate, atmospheric and ocean circulation, and the movement of energy and water through connected environmental systems.
The Arctic as a coupled system
- §1 The Arctic as a Coupled System
- §2 Polar Energy Balance
- §3 The Ice–Albedo Feedback
- §4 Sea-Ice Growth and Motion
- §5 Reading Sea Ice from Space
- §6 Sea-Ice Fieldwork
- §7 How Arctic Change Reaches Us
Earth-surface climatology and global hydrology
- §8 Systems, Stability, and Change
- §9 The Atmosphere and Solar Radiation
- §10 Surface Energy Balance
- §11 Atmospheric and Ocean Circulation
- §12 Temperature, Precipitation, and Global Hydrology
- §13 Catchment Hydrology and Ecohydrology
- §14 Land-Use Change, Water, and Urban Climate
A short catch-up route
Read §8 first for boundaries, budgets, storage, and feedback. Sections 9–10 explain where surface energy comes from and how it is divided. Section 11 shows how the atmosphere and ocean move heat and moisture, while §12 connects those patterns to temperature, precipitation, and the global water cycle. Sections 13–14 then zoom in to a drainage basin and ask how vegetation, soils, groundwater, forest removal, wetlands, and cities change its water and energy balances.
Keep three equations beside you while studying:
and
They are the same systems idea applied to storage, energy, and water.