Master of Science in Atmospheric Science - Climate Change Impacts

Atmospheric science is the study of the physics, chemistry, and dynamics of the atmosphere and its interrelationship with the hydrosphere and the biosphere. Students gain advanced knowledge of air quality, meteorology, atmospheric chemistry, micrometeorology, biometeorology, climate dynamics, mesoscale meteorology, large-scale dynamics, and numerical weather prediction. Students graduate with the qualitative and quantitative skills necessary for professional research and teaching in the chemistry and dynamics of the atmosphere and its interrelationship with the hydrosphere and the biosphere. The Graduate Group in Atmospheric Science offers both M.S. and Ph.D. degree programs. A student may place emphasis on graduate work in one or more of the following fields: air quality meteorology, atmospheric chemistry, cloud physical processes, biometeorology, micrometeorology, numerical weather prediction, remote sensing, climate dynamics, large-scale dynamics, meso-scale and boundary-layer meteorology, computational geosciences, extreme weather, and climate change impacts. The diverse and extensive backgrounds of the faculty allow opportunities for interdisciplinary training and research.

The Climate Change Impacts group at UC Davis examines the impact of climate change on society, including on specific sectors of the economy and on various ecosystem services. Research projects have focused on a number of topics, including investigating how climate change has impacted and will continue to impact agricultural production, and forestry and wildfire, water resources and energy demand, and quantifying the role of increasing temperature and changing patterns of precipitation. They also include examining the influence of climate change on air pollution and human health, through changes in atmospheric chemistry, transport of pollutants and biogenic emissions, as well as exploring the potential co-benefits of climate mitigation on anthropogenic emissions of pollutants. Climate change is also impacting ecosystem systems services, including natural terrestrial ecosystems and marine biology, which can have major implications for society, such as the modification of the carbon cycle. Students in the Climate Change Impacts group work to better understand the mechanisms and pathways through which climate change impacts all these complex systems as well as develop effective climate mitigation and adaptation strategies.