TO:	Registrar's Office Academic Advisement
FROM:	Dr. Carol Y. Phillips Executive Assistant to the President
DATE:	May 3, 2005
SUBJ:	Notification of Minor Curricular Change(s)

The following changes have been identified as minor curricular changes for the Earth Sciences department.

Curricular Change	Old Course Title	New Course Title
Title Change & Course Description Effective, Fall 2005	ESCI 448 - Boundary Layer Meteorology	ESCI 448 - Boundary Layers and Turbulence

Old Course Description: Characteristics of mean, neutral, stable, and convective boundary layers; micrometeorology; turbulent kinetic energy; turbulent production and dissipation; mixing length theory; K-theory; surface boundary layer and geographic effects. 3hrs. lec. Offered in spring of even years. Prereq: ESCI 342 and MATH 211.

New Course Description: Mean boundary layer characteristics; turbulence and its spectrum; governing equations to turbulent flow; prognostic equations for turbulent fluxes and variances; TKE; turbulence closure schemes; similarity theory; simulation techniques; convective and stable boundary layers; boundary layer clouds. 3 hrs. lec. Offered in spring of even years. Prereq: ESCI 342 and MATH 211.

Course	Curricular change: Pre-requisite
ESCI 241 - Meteorology	Pre-req: MATH 161 or MATH 163. Co or Pre-req: PHYS 131 or PHYS 231 Revised Pre-req or co-req: MATH 161 or MATH 163 and PHYS 131 or PHYS 231

Rationale: The course used to be offered fall and spring but spring enrollments have been low. Since the course may be offered in the fall only, the change in pre-requisites will allow most majors that would take this course in their sophomore year to be eligible to register for the course. Effective for WINTER/SPRING 2006 registration

Course	Curricular Change: Pre-requisite
ESCI 344 - Tropical Meteorology	Pre-req: ESCI 241 and MATH 211 Revised Pre-req: ESCI 341 and ESCI 342

Rationale: Under the current pre-requisite, students can register for this METEO major elective course after having only a single introductory meteorology course. With students varying backgrounds in meteorology, this limits the scope of what can be covered in the course and may short change the more advanced students. Changing the pre-requisite ensures that all students have had a course in atmospheric fluid dynamics and they would have been exposed to atmospheric thermodynamic principles. Effective for WINTER/SPRING 2006 registration

Course	Curricular Change: Pre-requisite
ESCI 445 - Numerical Modeling of the Atmosphere and Oceans	Pre-req: ESCI 343 or ESCI 365 or MATH 365; and ESCI 282 or CSCI 161 or permission of instructor Revised Pre-req: ESCI 282 or CSCI 161; pre-req or co-req: ESCI 343 or ESCI 365

Rationale: The METEO major elective course is offered every other spring. However, ESCI 343 is required for majors and is normally completed in the junior year. It used to be offered in the fall and is now being scheduled for the spring semesters. By making ESCI 343 a co-requisite will ensure that all students have an opportunity to take ESCI 445. Effective for WINTER/SPRING 2006 registration

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