Atmospheric science instruction
This website is an educational component for Dr. Pat Fitzpatrick's meteorology and oceanography lectures at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. Research, consultant, and vita credentials are available on drfitz.net and weathercsi.net .
These notes are the culmination of classroom instruction at Texas A&M as a graduate student (1988-1992), at Jackson State University (1996-2001; 2016-2017), and currently at TAMU-CC. As Louis L'Amour wrote, "Knowledge is like money; to be of value it must circulate, and in circulating it can increase in quantity and, hopefully, in value." In particular, meteorology classes have splintered into mathematical drudgery, and the human analysis component has wavered. Many "meteorologists" can't even interpret a weather map anymore. Weather forecasting has de-evolved into simply passing on weather model solutions. This situation was coined as "meteorological cancer" in 1977, but seems to have reached Stage 4. Moreover, the field has advanced and expanded in the private and government sector this decade, and students need to acquire new skill sets to meet these challenges. As a result, Fitzpatrick developed online classes at JSU in Fall 2016 and Spring 2017, and at TAMU-CC starting Fall 2019. This website is dedicated to this endeavor.
These notes are the culmination of classroom instruction at Texas A&M as a graduate student (1988-1992), at Jackson State University (1996-2001; 2016-2017), and currently at TAMU-CC. As Louis L'Amour wrote, "Knowledge is like money; to be of value it must circulate, and in circulating it can increase in quantity and, hopefully, in value." In particular, meteorology classes have splintered into mathematical drudgery, and the human analysis component has wavered. Many "meteorologists" can't even interpret a weather map anymore. Weather forecasting has de-evolved into simply passing on weather model solutions. This situation was coined as "meteorological cancer" in 1977, but seems to have reached Stage 4. Moreover, the field has advanced and expanded in the private and government sector this decade, and students need to acquire new skill sets to meet these challenges. As a result, Fitzpatrick developed online classes at JSU in Fall 2016 and Spring 2017, and at TAMU-CC starting Fall 2019. This website is dedicated to this endeavor.
Many of these classes were taught and recorded by videoconference using Zoom, and have been made available at this website, with supplemental online material recorded using Movavi software. Please provide due credit if used at other institutions. We're also interested in education or research collaborations to leverage this website. Feel free to contact Dr. Fitzpatrick for further discussions or questions.