My nephew/godson wrote me. He is a freshman in college studying math, but is considering transferring to a different university. He wants recommendations on
- Schools with good pure math programs.
- In cold climates.
I’m sitting looking out at the crunchy snow here in the Chicago areas and can only think, “You want cold?” But I guess when you live in California, you get weird ideas. I’d suggest interpreting “cold” relative to University of California, Riverside. By that measure, Seattle or London may be “cold”. (In contrast, by Chicago standards, Minneapolis and North Dakota are “cold”.)
Any suggestions would be welcome. Obviously, explanations about what is attractive about a particular school would also be welcome.
Once you get a list of potential schools there are two things that should be done to refine the choice:
1) Contact the math department and have a phone interview with at least one professor. The most important thing for undergraduates is to find a mentor who will supplement general advising. Have a set of questions and expectations. Take notes and see if there’s a connection. Ask about opportunities for undergraduate research, study abroad, etc.
2) compare several schools with tools such as College Portraits http://www.collegeportraits.org/ to get an overall understanding of their characteristics. Ignore the guidebooks such as the Princeton Review which are tediously superficial.
Additionally, schools are becoming more cognizant of their need to assess learning and to demonstrate their efforts in helping students learn. Check out the website of the National Institute for Leaning Assessment http://learningoutcomeassessment.org/ to see what’s going on.
I can’t suggest a school, but you may want to make sure you understand what he wants.
By “cold,” he may mean “snow,” which may suggest someplace like Syracuse, Flagstaff, or South Bend.
And since he’s already a college freshman, he may know what he means by “pure math,” but some people’s mental equipment responds better when the math is motivated by real-world problems like fluid flow, error-correction coding, or cryptography.
I don’t know, but I suspect Ohio State has a good math program because they ran and still run the Arnold Ross summer program for high school students, running since the 1950s. First year students do number theory, with later years learning combinatorics and other subjects.
When I studied math at UVA in the seventies, The University of Chicago had perhaps the best pure math department in the world. I can’t speak for today.
Nottingham is the place to go. Shiny new mathematics building. Pleasant green campus. Near to city centre for nightclubs etc.
Pure topics include analysis, algebra, number theory, cryptography.
He would have to learn to say “maths” though.
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/mathematics/index.aspx
Lucia,
If you judge by scores in the team and individual scores Putnam Exam for undergrads which generally correlates with a strong math program or a least a capability to recruit the best young math talent. The following school are the schools placing in the top 5 in the past 10 years
For team:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Carnegie Mellon University
Stanford University
Harvard University
California Institute of Technology
University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Berkeley
University of Waterloo
Princeton University
Duke University
University of Toronto
University of Chicago
There are several cold area schools in there that would probably be suitable.
Lucia,
“But I guess when you live in California, you get weird ideas.”
.
I think that is widely accepted, at least outside California. 😉
Joe Born
Sure. My general impression is that university math departments tend to think of “pure math” as somehow the pinnacle, while applied is see as somehow… not as pure. That said, in the long run, application is where jobs are– and to a large extent, has more interesting problems. But there is no harm in a kid focusing on ‘pure math’ as an undergraduate because they still end up fairly prepared to pick up applications in a reasonable amount of time. So I don’t see any need to lecture someone on the idea that it would be better or worse to pick ‘pure’ vs. ‘applied’ at this point.
Besides that, if he does turn out to be a whiz at pure– bravo. Some people do that.
Artifex’s list pretty much matches up almost perfectly with the best engineering schools. Not a coincidence I imagine.
US News list of best math graduate programs:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology – Department of Mathematics
Cambridge, MA
#1
Princeton University – Department of Mathematics
Princeton, NJ
#1
Harvard University – Department of Mathematics
Cambridge, MA
#3
University of California–Berkeley – Department of Mathematics
Berkeley, CA
#3
Stanford University – Department of Mathematics
Stanford, CA
#5
University of Chicago – Department of Mathematics
Chicago, IL
#5
California Institute of Technology – Department of Mathematics
Pasadena, CA
#7
University of California–Los Angeles – Department of Mathematics
Los Angeles, CA
#7
Columbia University – Department of Mathematics
New York, NY
#9
New York University – Department of Mathematics
New York, NY
University of Alberta, in Edmonton is a very good school, and very, very cold….They have very good math, science and engineering programs.
.
On the other hand, probably the furthest north Uni is Tuktoyaktuk University (latitude 69.44). Lots of tee shirts that advertise it, with “Tuktoyaktuk University” encircling the shorter, and more memorable, “Tuk U”.
.
Sadly, its fictional.
.
But, the U of A is a good school. On the upside, the Canadian peso is falling daily, so it might be a bargain. Your nephew would need to learn to speak Hockey, of course….
I think most people recognize that one can get an equal education at almost any leading university that is on the tier below the all-star lists that are very difficult to get accepted into.
However name brand recognition has value. One can examine where the media generally goes for academia input (the same list) and I assume it is easier to get grants and get published in prestigious journals when you come from a top university, but this is not my area.
My daughter is graduating HS this year and I told her the same thing, you want to get into the prestigious schools not because they deliver a materially better education than the very good second tier, but because everyone else thinks they do. Perception. Louis Vuitton. Of course I shudder at the thought she would leave some of these schools a flaming liberal, ha ha.
I was an applied math undergrad (Columbia). One little brother and his wife are pure math PhDs (one currently teaching at Columbia, the other at NYU).
There are so many different factors that go into a college choice. Rather than go the ultra-expensive route, value and cold weather could be found in many of the Big 10 schools if those other factors happen to float his boat.
Tom Scharf,
Generally, the ‘top’ land grant university in most of the 50 states will get you a very good undergraduate degree in any STEM field. Different states run their systems slightly differently– but usually one or two of the schools are “upper” state schools and others are “easier to get into” systems. (My nephew is looking at undergrad.)
The point of asking lots of people is some people might be aware of “gems” that aren’t on most people’s list. So for example: if everyone created a top 20 list instead of a top 10 list some things might pop-out. Still.. yeah.. top 10 are worth knowing!
A friend of mine got his PhD from SUNY Stony Brook which apparently has a good math program (he went there for its geometry program). James Simons (of Renaissance Technologies) was a former Professor and made a big donation there recently. Looks like it ranks pretty well for geometry too – whatever that might mean. Among other notes, U Chicago ranks quite highly. Another friend who was faculty there once mentioned the several Fields medalists on its rolls and how the chair, Fefferman I think, and former Fields medalist was a PhD by age 21 but the University was told by his father to wait till he grew up a little more to take his faculty position. The US News has various sub-specialty rankings, BTW.
Looks like Fefferman was former faculty there ..
I’d recommend University of Oulu, in Finland: http://www.oulu.fi/english/
There are many positive sides in selecting Oulu. I’ll list some:
1) Education is free.
2) It’s not of bad quality.
3) It surely is cold enough. Its’ currently -4C and I think it is pleasantly warm.
4) Lots and lots of beautiful (and slim) blond women.
5) We’re a sexually liberated country with sexually liberated women.
6) The women here prefer men that are from exotic places (“exotic” = “not within 100km”)
7) Everyone knows how to speak english.
8) Lots of beer drinking at parties.
9) Lots of partying.
10) Did I mention lots of foreigner-prefering drunk beautiful slim blond women at parties?
11) One of the most competitive countries in the world… (for reasons that are not quite clear to me…)
12) Countries with one of the most free press in the world.
13) Free healthcare.
14) Quite reasonable social security system.
15) Our GDP per capita is 66% of that of California, meaning we’re not a developing country like Poland (44%).
16) There are sauna’s everywhere.
17) Our beautiful slim blond women like to go to sauna, and nobody goes to sauna without being naked.
18) Yes, there is such a thing as “sekasauna”, which means both sexes enjoy the sauna together. Naked.
So if you like free stuff and naked beautiful (and quite possibly drunk) women, Oulu might just be the place for you.
Here’s the address: https://www.google.fi/maps/place/90100+Oulu/@41.5626922,-67.3537879,3z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x468032a8c02185c1:0x8bb02d322b12e97d
My daughter stands a good chance of getting a full ride from UF that is actually COA (cost of attendance). This is the best public school in Florida. If she gets into one of these name brand schools it becomes quite a dilemma what to do. It’s hard to turn down “free” to a good university in order to pay a bunch for a high profile national university.
At the moment I told her if she plans on going to graduate school / medical school that the better plan would be to take free now and save her (my) money for grad school.
On the other hand, it looks like people generally don’t do that. MIT / Stanford / Harvard and the like have an ~80% acceptance rate of their offers, and I imagine anyone declining MIT is likely going to Stanford, Harvard etc. Maybe not.
The most likely scenario is getting rejected and not having to make any decision here, ha ha.
For the size of Florida, it is a bit distressing that there aren’t any really good tech schools in the state. Ga. Tech is probably the best one “in the neighborhood”.
Tuomoinen,
Apparently Finland also lacks a feminist movement, ha ha.
Tuomoinen (Comment #134542),
Careful, you are in danger of disrupting the ratio of male to female students at universities in both Finland and the USA.
Here’s a set of rankings. YMMV.
The best “cold climate” math department in the world is the University of Chicago.
The best cold “big 10” school is U Michigan (Ann Arbor).
If he wants something more exotic, I’d suggest Zurich.
Tuomoinen,
Are classes given in English or Finnish? If the latter, I suspect my nephew will be unable to attend; it’s highly unlikely he could learn Finnish in time to take any courses.
However, if the classes are in English and my handsome nephew reads your recommendation, I suspect he will be hankering to go there. Alas, I fear he might not learn much math. With a Filipino mother and a [insert whatever fits for Irish-UK-Cuban mix that is my family ] father, he will certainly be “exotic” and find women throwing themselves at him.
I was– btw– already familiar with the whole Finland/sauna thing.
Tuomoinen –
Dang! Why couldn’t you have given me that information when I was deciding where to attend college? 😀
With due respect to Paul Matthews, the top 3 universities for Maths in the UK are Cambridge and Oxford in some debatable order followed by Warwick. Admission to both Oxford and Cambridge is extremely academically selective; Warwick is merely very selective.
But note that nowhere in the UK is genuinely cold compared to, say, Chicago or Boston: it’s more permanently damp and miserable.
Outside the UK you might look at ETH Zurich.
Oh, and I would second the mention of Waterloo.
Lucia
If your nephew is not adverse to large student body institutions, I would suggest a large Mid-Western public universities primarily because there is the likelihood of a broad spectrum of math offered by a diverse faculty.
In my case, after the initial courses I had to take since I didn’t test out of these prerequisite courses, I had an immigrant from Persia (he didn’t want to acknowledge Iran) and another math prof from the then Soviet Union and I learned I didn’t need to take off my socks to go onto the next problem.
If I were your nephew, I would look at the Mid-Western public university math departments list of names, and, if I couldn’t pronounce half of their names, that would be a sign to me that there are some pretty smart people teaching math. I would pick up the phone and speak with one of these unpronounceable name professors and see if I could understand them (In my case I had to learn Russian to be able to understand one of my profs) and in today’s world, if I had to learn Mandarin, then, so be it.
This is from the “always needing to learn the hard way” folks.
Cornell has good math and terribly cold weather. My son had his hair freeze on the way to class once when he went too quickly after a shower. But he survived the cold and managed to get a good degree.
It is a wee bit isolated, however. But lake Cayuga is amazingly beautiful in the spring and summer.
Here is a recent ranking of math schools:
http://college.usatoday.com/2014/10/08/top-10-colleges-for-a-major-in-math/
Good luck and best wishes to your nephew. If he picked up your smarts genes, he could do very well.
On a Bollywood note, there is a movie about University life in India called “The Three Idiots”.
Here is the trailer with English subtitles.
http://vimeo.com/54305653
We Americans think we are pushing the “STEM” curriculum. Compared to India’s cultural commitment to STEM, we are doing basically nothing.
Lucia,
I am not really knowledgeable about the math department at Ohio State, but I think your nephew should look into it. Because my father was in the golf business, I have lived in Cleveland, Santa Barbara, Naples (Fl), Columbus & Cincinnati, and Columbus is by far my favorite. It is a practical place where things get done. (As compared to Santa Barbara where you need 8 permits to open a hot dog stand.)
…..
Academically, the advantage of Ohio State is that every program you can imagine is there. For instance, if you are in law school and a pharmacy question arises, you can go to the pharmacy school and look up the issue. It is definitely not Harvard or Yale, but it is good. Also, because it is not located in a “vacation” type destination spot, the students there tend to be more serious and practical about academics than in other places. One of the posters had a list of the top 100 universities in the world for math and OSU was in the second 50. Additionally, Hu McCulloch, who has posted frequently on Climateaudit is a professor there, and it is possible that your nephew can talk to him. Good luck to your nephew.
…..
JD PS If your nephew likes football, occasionally OSU has a good team. (:
Williston State College, Williston, North Dakota…
If he wants cold, he might as well go to a place that has absolutely nothing else going for it other than fracking.
Is that Battlestar Galactica or oil drilling?
Is that Battlestar Galactica or oil drilling?
Nice!
Frack me, I’d forgotten. 🙂 I ought to watch that again one of these days, the first few episodes were all right if memory serves.
The UofU is a good school (at least good enough for me and my oldest) and is ranked #34 in math (no idea what that means). We have both HOT and COLD; though this winter has been rather balmy with highs just above freezing. If it means anything, when my youngest leaves for college I am going back.
What is wrong with Riverside? My sister was born near there and I was born a few hours north. My father went to UCLA then took advanced degrees at Stanford for training in complex analysis and fluid dynamics. Stanford is still a great place for a young work-obsessed nerd.
Someone mentioned ETH — a friend of mine graduated there. Algol. Ha!
@Tom Scharf
Actually we have quite a popular feminist movement. I guess that’s the reason for the sexually liberated -part. Our Feminists are also blond, slim and beautiful.
@Lucia
I have a Chinese co-corker who graduated with an Msc. from the department of Computer Science, so language shouldn’t be a problem. Usually the classes are held in English, unless everyone speaks Finnish.
@SteveF (Comment #134545)
I wouldn’t want to give an impression that only males should come here. We also have lots of tall, blonde and slim men, who are quite often drunk and even more often naked.
http://tinyurl.com/lnvf38y
He should go to France, especially Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fields_Medal
Colorado School of Mines in Golden, home of Coors beer, is close to the mountains and in the foothills is at an elevaton above 5,600 ft. Can be quite cold. Ranked in the top 10 of Hunter’s list.
conard (Comment #134567)
What is wrong with Riverside?
He didn’t say.
Possibly there is nothing objectively wrong other than he wants cold. Or maybe he wants to be further from home— that’s common enough with college age kids. My other niece and nephew were very happy to be more than 2 hours away from their parents. I was. My siblings were. Parents are great– but at a certain age, sometimes young adults crave a bit of distance.
OK, first things first
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oRb9-mypxg
Also, Berkeley is about as cold in summer as Anchorage.
Having gotten that out of the way, some real points. State universities in the US are NOT inexpensive for out of staters. This is both good and bad because out of state applicants are preferred for admissions but have to spend a LOT more money.
Lest you think going to other countries is a way out, tuition is expensive for international students at UK universities but in Finland the cost is zero (also Germany, but that is another story because until the 80s they were free to everyone, then in a fit of let’s be like the US they were, and recently returned to the status quo ante)
Eli,
Zero tuition in Finland? I almost shudder to think of how attractive that could make Finland for an ‘exotic’ looking American youth!
Lucia,
Yup, zero tuition might even make someone want to become conversationally proficient in Finnish…. or at least good enough to maintain a conversation in a sauna. 😉
@SteveF
Finnish shares a common root only with Hungarian, it would likely be easier to find a general solution for a quartic equation (and thus likely secure a Nobel) than to become proficient in either 🙂
@All
From personal experience of a couple of short (multi week) visits for soaring competitions, Tuomoinen’s word picture of Finland’s fairer sex needs fleshing out, so to speak. E.g. beautiful blonde slim females are also invariably either accompanied by tall, well muscled male relatives or can run very fast.
@Lucia
From @All above if your nephew has a track background he’ll be more successful 🙂 Another issue is the insect population, more especially the biting kind. While a romantic dip in one of the zillions of lakes following a social sauna sounds wonderful, leaving the country without having left a litre or two of your blood behind involuntarily is quite an achievement!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartic_function#Solving_a_quartic_equation
Maybe you meant quintic? But you wouldn’t get a Nobel Prize, they probably burn you, as it has long been proved impossible.
Gras, I will warn my nephew that the tales of sexually adventurous Finnish women throwing themselves at exotic males may be a wild exaggeration.
lucia,
I can see your nephew (and his parents) rolling on the floor over the advice being shared out on this thread. The poor guy hasn’t got a chance, lol.
From the sublime of Cornell I would offer one other school nearly as cold as Finland, colder than Cornell and yet closer to his Tia Preciosa in Wisconsin:
http://www.mtu.edu/ Michigan Tech is actually supposed to be a very good school. And a tremendous opportunity for learning about the cold.
Nestled on the lovely southern shore of Lake Superior will get and stay chilly for sure. Southern California and its predictable warm weather will be a thing of memory. And there is a 35 mile ski trail on and around campus, along with beginner and advanced slopes.
By the way, NASA is really pumping up the intern and other opportunities for promising math students. My daughter in law to be may get a position at NASA Ames this summer due to her math focus, and I know that JSC in Houston is ramping up educational out reach at all levels as well. He could be stepping into mathematics at a great time. If he can stand the cold.
@ Tuomoinen (Comment #134542)
Did I see your name is director of development and recruitment for the University of Oulu?
You can certainly present and close a deal, sir. ;^)
Part 2. Your nephew has to be realistic. Just as with theoretical high energy physics, pure math is a very slippery pole with little room. Worse, about the only people who could tell your neph if he fits on the pole would be a mathematician who has a degree from an R1. Statistics and actuarial science and finance have more room, because like chemistry, there are real industries supporting them who need employees.
For once Eli speaks the truth plainly. I majored in Philosophy and Math; unless you are the cream of the cream those fields offer little in terms of paying jobs.
Fortunately the university provided excellent mentors and advisors to help me see it clearly. I still plan on getting my advanced math degree, but for fun — my livelihood does not depend on it.
University math departments build their reputations on research, not teaching. Going to a big-name school is fine if your nephew already is a math whiz because he’ll meet many more of his kind there who can build a learning environment that can withstand neglect from professors doing their research and TAs who can barely speak English. If faculty mentoring is what he’s looking for a good liberal arts college might be better. Friends of mine sent their son to Carleton College in the Twin Cities where he thrived as a math major. The Claremont colleges in the LA area (e.g. Harvey Mudd) also are good, but alas lack a brutal winter, a disadvantage absent from Carleton.
For a quick intro to Finland, watch the DVD “Lapland Odyssey”:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1454505/
Math is the best degree, but nobody else knows what math is or what it is good for in the general world, so to get hired you need to find a boss who also has a math degree. It probably helps to also know another field.
Carleton is no longer in Northfield? Gasp!
Eli gives good advice regarding setting realistic goals for what to do in math.
hunter,
I agree. But I also figure that can be sorted out junior or senior year. A school that is good in pure math will generally also be good in applied math. So… not really a big problem.
lucia,
True enough. The other rule of thumb is that under grad school and grad school do not have to be the same. If he needs to explore the cold as an undergrad he may be more than ready for a warmer grad school experience after he thaws out.
In a small way Math could be considered like swimming. Nearly everyone swims some. Many swim pretty good. Some swim really well. But relatively few are so good at it as to make a living off of swimming itself. Yet it is a highly respected ‘pure’ sport nonetheless. It is certainly worth pursuing one’s potential in it.
That is the sort of encouragement I am giving my lovely future daughter in law regarding her math major.
To be young, talented and with so many options and dreams… and having a supportive Tia to boot. Life is good.
hunter,
“In a small way Math could be considered like swimming. Nearly everyone swims some. Many swim pretty good. Some swim really well. But relatively few are so good at it as to make a living off of swimming itself. ”
.
Good analogy. But a few drown. 😉
Unfortunately for your nephew’s sake, the Oulu site says:
“University of Oulu does not offer English-taught programmes in Bachelor’s level. The University only accepts students who have previous language skills in Finnish language and applicants have to both apply in Finnish and be able to pass the entrance examination in Finnish.”
However, they DO have masters level courses in English. It might be time for me to get a little more education!
SteveF,
Thanks. The drowning happens, sadly. The unabomber is probably the worst extreme example of that sort of drowning I can think of. I am more familiar with actuaries- applied math. The biggest risk for them is being the punchlines for old jokes:
http://www.barricksinsurance.com/insurance_jokes3.html
j ferguson, my bad and I should have known better. The fake ID I used to carry when I was 18 said I was from Northfield, MN.
My daughter went to St. Andrews in Scotland. It has a strong Natural Sciences department – I am less clear about Math. It is still a much better deal cost wise than a private US college.
I would ask Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick about Canadian schools. A colleague sent his son to school at Univeristy of British Columbia. Again it was a good economic decision.
But the key issue for me is your nephew’s talent level. If he is really talented, then he needs to find a program where his peers are equally talented. He will likely learn more from them than his professors – if he can even understand them. If he is “average” as a major in his field, then I would encourage him to look for a program that provides the greatest opportunities to get real world career experience – which basically means universities with good engineering schools close to industry centers.
If he is a really good student and can get into a top flight school, the money issue is secondary. I had Harvard undergrads working for me as interns. We had a couple of losers, but when we had one we wanted to hire we found that we could not afford them. They were choosing among 6 figure offers!
I would consider looking at a school where he will be compeditive. It makes almost no diffrence which collage one goes to as an undergraduate. It maters much more that one gets a hight GPA and can do well on the graduate examinations. With a hight gpa and good gmat scores the world is open. If you go to MIT or Harvard it is going to be very hard to get a high GPA. If one goes to say Univesty of Maryland then it is much easer.
Could I ask which universities have good climate science programs or would that be too provocative?
OT. Nothing of any real import, just funny. One of my boys (the 7 year old) asked me how color works this morning.
…17 hours later…
🙂
It amused me to discover how difficult it is to explain seemingly simple concepts to children. Energy, waves, frequency, the spectrum. Cells, nerves, retinas. Atoms, electron photon interaction, energy states.
The cool part is the kids actually stayed with me I think for most of it. I know they only got about 5% of what I was saying, but still.
@ Ledite (Comment #135084)
“Which schools have good climate programs?”
Probably the same schools that had good eugenics programs back in the age of eugenics.
How many photons have to interact with the electrons in the rod or cone cells in our eyes before we perceive something, anyway? Is it a function of nerve firing duration or density or what, in order for us to notice it?
(uhm why am I asking this here. Uhm. hmm. I shouldn’t be, probably. Except the Blackboard is the place for people who are educated but not necessarily indoctrinated, I guess is my reasoning? Or maybe I’m just a.)
yeah, I’m a.
I wonder if I can make that a ‘thing’. I’m a.
Mark,
Search on ‘human eye quantum efficiency’
According to this article, the quantum efficiency for a human to detect an object reliably ( DQE ) is only 1-2%. That’s much less than the quantum efficiency of the chromophores themselves.
Holy …
:O
Thanks.
Mark: when my daughter was about that age she asked where money comes from.
Me: Well, I get paid for working.
her: where do they get their money?
me: My office (national lab) gets money from the government.
her: where does government get its money?
me: from taxes.
pause….her: don’t you pay taxes?
she just discovered that money comes from nowhere and goes in a circle. I was so proud.
Craig,
For a humorous take on money, try reading Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novel Making Money. IMO, Pratchett is an incredibly talented satirist.
Craig Loehle,
A comprehensive understanding of money (what it is, how it works) is probably just as difficult as many complicated physical concepts.
Mark Bofill,
If you have a 7 YO who wants to understand color, then you have probably won the technical talent lottery…. good for you. (www.youtube.com/watch?v=60P1xG32Feo)
Interesting.
Being born and raised in Riverside I am quite familiar with UCR. I have several friends and clients who teach there and they have fairly unique biology and entomology programs along with a very diverse student population. I don’t know much about the math dept. but if your nephew was considering staying within SoCal I imagine CIT and Harvey Mudd would be an enriched learning environment with excellent job opportunities as a grad. At one point I believe Harvey Mudd was ranked as the highest ROI in the US, meaning grads all got good jobs. Yep, still is and CIT is ranked #2.
http://www.payscale.com/college-education-value-2013
While the hills around UCR are often quite dry and brown I never understood the desire to move from balmy 70F winters towards a cold climate. Suddenly the University of Oulu has me rethinking this and pursuing a Masters degree in Finland surely might be invigorating. My kids were athletes and wanted beach sand instead of snow in their shoes. UCSD served them well and their transitions from student life to the working world over the last 6 years seemed relatively effortless compared to many of their peers.
Wishing your nephew good hunting in his search for a pure math school in a cold place Lucia.
Mark Bofill
Thanks for that. Out of the mouths of babes etc…
After several weeks of grey skies and rain, the sky turned blue. No1 son, then about 4, commented: “the rain clouds have gone and the sun clouds have come out”.
On physics. One of my students, a very bright lady in her 30s, commented to me about the summer heat where we live. I explained to her that we get a foehn. Latent heat of evaporation/precipitation and that. Then, how come when you heat a pan of boiling water it doesn’t get any hotter? Blank look, impenetrable.
Hector,
I got to admit, I don’t really get foehns either. Never heard of them before you mentioned, having googled them I’m still pretty puzzled.
What is a rain shadow?
Meh. I’m not a physical scientist, I’m a software guy.
(EDIT: so this tells me nothing. Maybe it’s just another Mark be slow example:
A rain shadow is a dry area on the lee side of a mountainous area (away from the wind). The mountains block the passage of rain-producing weather systems and cast a “shadow” of dryness behind them.
Okay, so .. .. what the heck am I supposed to walk away with. I get that mountains interfere with air circulation, but why does this have anything to do with dryness?
(blush in advance I guess)
So, sun evaporates water, water vapor in air, goes up, gives up energy falls out of sky as rain. Why do mountains make a dry shadow? They don’t block the sun or the (evaporating) water, just the wind?
:> Oh. Elementary schools texts explain this. like here.
~sigh~. So I suck. Well, I never made any bones about it at least. 🙂
I get it now. so the thing is it (basically) never precipitates on the desert side; there IS no moisture to evaporate over there. The mountain discriminates moisture because air has to rise to get over it, and as it rises it cools, and as it cools it precipitates.
See, with work I might could be as smart as your third grader. :p
Mark,
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that if elementary text books explain something, the explanation will be retained. Have you watched “are you smarter than a 5th grader?” The 5th graders nearly always win.
Besides that, the reason the following doesn’t make sense is it’s not a very good explanation:
The reason for the air being hot and dry is not “blocking” of the system.
Obviously, the hot dry air arrived. It was part of some system that clearly wasn’t “blocked” because it got to the place that is supposedly “blocked”.
It’s true some blocking of some systems occurs, but that’s not the reason for ‘hot dry’.
Think about this instead.
Suppose there is a mass of moist air with some temperature on the west side of the Cascades. (Say, in Seattle.) Also suppose there is some pressure pushing the air to the west, toward the mountains. Assume the mountains don’t actually succeed in blocking it, but instead the air actually starts to rise up the mountains.
As this air rises, it trades some thermal energy for potential energy. So, it gets colder. When it gets colder, the water condenses and falls out. The air now arrives at the top of the mountains.
The air is still cold. But now, the air contains less water vapor.
Now, the mountains continue to not block the air, which travels down the mountain side. As it travels down, it once again trades potential energy for heat. So it warms.
Obviously, it’s now dry because the water got squeezed out at the top of the mountains (where it rained or snowed, as often occurs at the top of the mountains.)
But why is it hot? Because on the way down, the water is no longer present and the specific heat is effectively lower. So the temperature rises more on the way down.
Now all this air which was clearly not blocked in any way arrives, drier and hotter than when it started on the other side. Voila: Hot and Dry. Nothing to do with “blocked”.
Does blocking also occurr? Sure. Some. But that’s not the reason the air that arrives is hot and dry.
Do you feel better about not understanding the previous explanation? You should. 🙂
Lucia,
Thank you. I’d have never realized that part without somebody pointing it out. So why is it warmer (hot)? Because the same energy makes dryer air have a higher temperature than wetter air. And YES, I feel better about not understanding the previous explanation.
Not the same energy, it’s not the same energy. But that’s why it’s hotter. it’s ‘easier’ for dry air to get hot than moist air. For a given amount of energy, dry air gets hotter than moist, is all I was trying to say.
Gah – Ju know what I mean.
So I’m taking a time out.
Mark,
It’s not the water vapor, it’s the lack of liquid water as the air compresses and heats. If there were no precipitation, then the liquid water in the cloud that forms as the air moves upward and cools would evaporate again on the way down and you would get the same temperature and relative humidity. The heat capacity of moist air, as long as it’s above the dew point temperature, is about the same as dry air. But there is, so the descending air is hotter and has a much lower relative humidity.
When the Santa Ana wind blows from the high desert down the mountains to the sea in Southern California, the RH is really close to zero because there wasn’t much humidity in the air to start with.
Now see, I was perfectly happy before you said that DeWitt. Just so you know. :p
So lets take it from the top.
So I don’t get the point. It seems the point has something to do with liquid water in the cloud as opposed to water vapor? Is this right, and if so, how does it affect the temperature of the air.
Oh. I had a parse failure I think. Mebbe I get it now.
If there were no precipitation, is what but there is, so is referring back to? So, the air is hotter because there is precipitation?
Yah, if the point is that when water changes state from gas to liquid or vice versa that heat is released or absorbed, then I get it.
Mark Bofill
Yes. Because if the liquid water or ice stayed suspended, it could just re-evaporate on the way down absorbing some of the heat and keeping the temperature from soaring. But the water that stayed stuck in a glacier at the top of the mountain or tricking down as a stream doesn’t re-evaporate and re-release it’s ‘coolth’ because it fell to the ground as snow or rain.
Mark Bofill,
On the way up the air cools along the ‘moist adiabat’, which is about 5-6C cooler per Km increase in altitude. So moist air that rises 4 Km from sea level to pas over the mountains has cooled by about 22C, but lost moisture via precipitation. When it is forced down the other side, it warms along the ‘dry adiabat’ which is about 10C per Km. So, returning to near sea level on the lee side of the mountains the air warms about 40C… and ends up ~18C (32F) hotter.. the pleasant, fairly moist 75F on the windward side becomes a hellacious 107F of the leeward side.
Of course, the rising/falling air can lose some heat radiativly, so the temperature may not rise quite so much. It is important to note that the descent of air is driven by horizontal wind; air at a ‘potential temperature’ higher than the air at the ground would not spontaneously displace that cooler (in a potential sense) ground air without applied wind force.
Thanks all.
Wow. I posted my comment yesterday evening. Come back today and look what happened! Thanks everyone 🙂
I’m doing some more basic due dilligence and I realize I owe the Blackboard a thanks again, because I didn’t get I needed to look. Lots I’m still missing. It’s interesting though.
The open thread recently closed so I’ll plunk here what I started on that thread.
Since I have not had a response from KNMI for sometime after pointing to differences in their results and mine in converting the gridded radiation values for rsdt (short wave incoming), rlut (long wave outgoing) and rsut (short wave reflected) from CMIP5 models into global means, I have gone ahead and downloaded all the gridded data from here:
http://cera-www.dkrz.de/WDCC/ui/EntryList.jsp?acronym=ETHr4
and used my calculations for converting to global means. I know that the administrator at KNMI is busy with other science work but was surprised that I did not receive a timely follow-up after pointing to a potential problem with their conversion method. It all revolves around the start and end points used in incrementing the latitudinal zones and the effect that has on the sine or cosine area weighting. I was able to duplicate KNMI results and also show that the gridded data used by KNMI and DKRZ is identical. In the end the differences between my calculations and KNMI make some differences in the results I will show here and with the KNMI method making the model data appear more out of balance given the net TOA radiation (N) and the potential global sea water temperature (GSWT).
I have determine N by N=rsdt-(rsut+rlut) where the radiation values are in watts/m2 and are global means. The GSWT values for the CMIP5 model runs were obtained from DKRZ in global mean form. These GSWT changes should track the ocean heat content and further the slope from regressing the GSWT versus N should be around 2.6E-03 K/(watts/m2) assuming a global sea water volume of 1.37 billion km3, sea water density of 1025kg/m3, sea water heat capacity of 3985 J kg-1 K-1 and that 95% of N is absorbed by the global sea water. All values were taken for the period 2006-2100 and are for RCP4.5 CMIP5 model runs. The link here explains a similar approach by Palmer and McNeall:
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/9/3/034016/pdf/1748-9326_9_3_034016.pdf
I have outlined my methods here previously:
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2014/new-open-thread/#comment-134894
Before analyzing the results, which are reported in the table in the link below, I should state from the start that my purpose here has been in detailing differences between individual CMIP5 models and not at this point conjecturing about what these differences mean or what causes the differences.
I show in the table the slopes and slope standard errors for the regression of the change in GSWT versus the accumulated N. I then show in the same table the slope and slope standard errors for GSWT versus time and finally show the mean and standard deviations for N in the time series from 2006-2100. I present the statistics for N this way since those series are in most cases relatively flat to somewhat concave in appearance.
It can be readily seen that the GSWT versus accumulated N slopes differ across individual models but not much over model runs for the same model. This result should provide a clue as to how the model to model differences occur – and it would apparently not be from internal variability. The slopes for 3 model/model runs come close to my expectations from above and are namely CMCC, GFLD, and IPSL-CMSA-MR. Looking at the rest of the table results shows that the differences between models arises mainly from differences in N. Overall the remaining puzzle to me is that over this time period from 2006-2100 those models that stray significantly from the expected slope must not have an established energy balance unless heat is being stored in some very different manner. This apparent lack of balance is even more surprising to me given the literature that notes that TOA balance, with consideration for OHC I would assume, is of prime importance when tuning these climate models.
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1600x1200q90/537/PAhjXA.png
Kenneth, did you notice the range of SST? I was trying to compare tropical SST to model mean when I noticed the difference.
Dallas, the temperature that I am using is the potential global sea ware temperature or thetaoga as referenced in the literature. It is the average temperature of the entire volume (mass) of the globe’s sea water – all the way down. The SST you reference is sea surface temperature I assume. Potential means that thetaoga was adjusted for temperature differences due to compression at depth.
Kenneth, do you have a link to estimates of thetaoga? I have tried a few Googles and no luck so far.
This is not in answer to the particular question posed, but I’d like to recommend a couple of interesting books about mathematics: The Mathematical Experience and Archimedes Revenge. They are very readable books on what the field of Mathematics is like.