Irish Weather History course

sryanbruen

So recently, I just came across an interesting link on how to make your own college or university course. I don't know how to be honest, I would never think of making one. However, this link was very interesting and it said things like that you can make a course about anything educational even things like Sports History.

Due to that, I thought why not make an Irish Weather History course . If only somebody was teaching it and I got to take it.... I can only dream :rolleyes:.

I feel pretty confident that I want to be a teacher in future though still not fully certain on what type whether be it a primary, secondary or third education teacher.

If I will want to be a third education teacher, I want to prepare for it now with this course I am making up. I am only 16 though after all, but hey age can't tell your intelligence level :P.

This is my description I have made up so far though I want to improve it significantly so:

Irish people talk about the weather daily but people don't talk about the country's weather history as often as present day or long range weather. If you would like the opportunity to learn about Ireland's weather extremes of the past whether be it the extraordinary wet and warm December of 2015 or very cold year of 1879, take this course. You will be able to compare present day weather to the weather of the past. Also, you will be able to make predictions based on reanalysis and looking at previous occurrences of events like La Nina, El Nino etc.

I have also made these my course objectives

- Ensure that each student will have a good knowledge of the history of weather.
- Learn how to make weather predictions based on the weather of the past.
- Learn all Irish weather extremes of the past.
- Give each student a good understanding of how weather works.

I know they're not great, but what do you expect from a 16 year old like come on now .

I am doing some huge research on more sites helping me to create this course. I would appreciate any tips. Also, I'm thinking of how I'm going to create the syllabus for the course of what I'm going to include.

These weather events will definitely be in the course for a start:

1. Extremely cold year of 1879
2. Stunning Summer of 1911
3. Atrocious Summer of 1912
4. September heatwave of 1906
5. Severe cold Winter of 1962/63
6. Exceptionally cold and snowy Winter of 1946/47
7. Very cold spell of November/December 2010

I am sorry if I'm annoying you by posting this here .

riffmongous

It's an interesting idea, a question

Is it going to be a course for historians or for meteorologists? I am not sure if it would be suitable for a Msc meteorology course since you don't really have time during the study for a full course of case studies.

I think a short course on the history of meteorology in Ireland rather than weather would also be interesting.

sryanbruen

riffmongous wrote: »

It's an interesting idea, a question

Is it going to be a course for historians or for meteorologists? I am not sure if it would be suitable for a Msc meteorology course since you don't really have time during the study for a full course of case studies.

I think a short course on the history of meteorology in Ireland rather than weather would also be interesting.

It would be a course for meteorologists because I don't think historians would be interested in the weather of the past. Historians are interested in things like wars, archaeology etc. Weather history is completely different and I'm putting an Ireland emphasis on Weather History. The course has nothing to do with weather outside of Ireland.

The problem with History of Meteorology in Ireland is that I am not fit to make a syllabus of that as I have not learnt the history of the meteorology of Ireland of how weather forecasting evolved from the 20th century to the present day. I don't know anything about that but yes it would be interesting, I'm not arguing with that.

You may see it now as a course that would basically be packed with case study after case study after case study. Not really, I would have a weekly schedule where I would teach an event on the first day of the week. Oh by the way, I would run the course for 3 days a week with 50 minutes per class. Correct me if this is not an appropriate schedule, this is what is appropriate according to my research - I'm not sure as I know little about university yet . On the second day of the week, I would give the students an assignment and on the third day of the week, the students would give me their assignment. They would present their assignment for me and show off their knowledge from what they have learnt during the week. I would then give them a grade based on their assignment. At the end of each semester, I would give the students an exam. The exam would be based on what they have learned and not the syllabus, unlike many exams. Your result would not depend on what comes up on the exam, only how much you know. So study what you know and can!

The odd week I would do meetings with students where I would give them feedback, how they could improve etc.

A problem I can see is that there are no textbooks or even just books on any Irish weather history. So I would either have to be the author of an Irish weather history book myself and make one or teach the subject without a textbook just like the Junior Cert subject, Environmental and Social Studies.

Black Swan

Hi sryanbruen,
I do not have the disciplinary expertise to evaluate or suggest what should be contained in an "Irish Weather History" course. You are certainly welcome to discuss this here in our Researcher forum. Perhaps you could PM some of the Weather mods and members inviting them to comment about your idea here in this thread?

Have a nice week
Black Swan

Manach

A course on weather would be of interest to historians, between the mini ice age that decimated the Viking colonies in Greenland to the ice storms that decimated the Armies of Napoleon on their retreat from Moscow, an appreciation of weather and its effects has always been key factor in the study of History. Thus the OP has an good idea for a course.

riffmongous

Manach wrote: »

A course on weather would be of interest to historians, between the mini ice age that decimated the Viking colonies in Greenland to the ice storms that decimated the Armies of Napoleon on their retreat from Moscow, an appreciation of weather and its effects has always been key factor in the study of History. Thus the OP has an good idea for a course.

There is even quite a bit of joint research nowadays between historians and meteorologists/hydrologists/geographers on trying to extend the knowledge of hydro-meteorological events beyond the instrumented period (which only goes back slightly over 100 years) by analysing historical sources to try to get information on flood and climate events. I am sure I have read somewhere too of someone looking at famine events recorded in the Annals with a view to linking them to climate events.

There is a session on it at the EGU which might be of interest to you OP, you can click on the 'orals' and 'posters' links in this link to see what the research looks like http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2016/session/20234



As a course just for meteorologists I am not so convinced, as time is quite limited and there is a lot to learn, also with a focus on not so the much extremes but more on the normal every week weather events that happen in Ireland. There is so much involved in explaining how a normal weather system develops that a course just looking at a different weather extremes would teach the students enough (at a masters student level, for an early semester bachelor degree where there would be less of a focus on mathematics it might be ok). It's also more important for budding forecasters to spend as much time as possible working on these events, as they will be their bread and butter if they go to work for Met Eireann.

I can give you a quick run down of the masters studies which I did at UCD years ago but is no longer offered.

1st semester
Synoptic meteorology (data from stations, charts, frontal analysis)
Dynamical meteorology (fluid mechanics, conservation laws, basic equations, vorticity equation, quasi-geostrophic analysis, perturbation theory)
Physical meteorology (basic laws of the atmosphere, cloud physics)

2nd semester
Climate physics (energy balance, radiative transfer theory, general circulation)
Numerical Weather Prediction (data assimilation, solving equations, computer programming)
Synoptic Meteorology 2 (cyclogenesis, development and trajectory using simplified versions of the equations learned in the Dynamical course)

So this is a lot of work but it still barely touches on a lot of areas of meteorology, I think one of the reasons being it was aimed at students who would go on to work for Met Eireann so the main focus was on work they do there..

So I'd see it hard for your course on it's own to fit in as an addition to the above.. but as a part of the synoptic meteorology modules it could certainly work. There we would sometimes look at historical events and analyse them, but not just focusing on them. And they would usually be short term events, like a storm or so rather than an entire winter.

There might not be a textbook, but analysis of historical events is sometimes done as a masters thesis by a student who did the course, and it might be possible to use. Also before you would be in a position to teach you will have needed to do at least a bachelor study and probably a masters thesis yourself so you could analyse a few events as part of that.

I hope the above is of some interest to you, I wrote it in quite a rambling way I think

sryanbruen

After a few days of thinking about it and taking riffmongous' post into consideration, I have come to agree immensely with what you guys are saying. I do think that what you guys suggest would be much more interesting of a course than what I originally intended it to be. I do think that you guys' suggestions have really helped in making the idea become a bit more alive.

I never intended it to have very small events like Warmest November day on record (1 November 2015) or May Heatwave of 2012 etc, only truly outstanding events like December 2015.

I do think that going back to the mini ice age maybe a bit too out of way but I'm not arguing with it 'cause like I said, I agree with your idea. I do think that it's an amazing idea and much better than my original ideas I made.

I thought that having some Meteorology thrown in the course was needed originally because I had a feeling that students would not have the slightest clue what I meant from terms like Advection or Retrogression.

Unfortunately, it has gotten late and I have forgotten a lot on my mind. I will hopefully continue what I was trying to say tomorrow.

sryanbruen

So I'm trying to find resources as well as things to include in this course's syllabus. All I've found so far is the 1798 Irish Rebellion:

http://www.met.ie/climate-ireland/weather-events/Summer1798.pdf

Source: Met Éireann

Shouldn't I include events like the Night of the Big Wind from 6/7 January 1839?

Lumi

sryanbruen wrote: »

So I'm trying to find resources as well as things to include in this course's syllabus.

At third-level, students would be expected to use valid academic sources such as peer-reviewed journals, academic texts etc. all of which will be freely available either online or in hard copy through the institutions own library.
As you are currently at second level you may not be aware or have access to these, though your local library might be able to help you with these.

There are some resources available online that are not behind a paywall
For instance the Armagh Observatory have made a number of meteorological papers available HERE
If you scroll down through the list you may find some that are of interest.

In terms of interesting weather events and extremes from Ireland, I think that you will find the journal 'Weather' full of interesting and informative papers - a number of which relate to Irish events. Just use the search bar on the side of the to search within this publication for Ireland or whatever other criteria you like.

Here a just a few that are available free of charge - I'd download and save them if you're interested because they may not be free indefinitely

Graham, E. (2004), The Emerald Isle turns white: Snow and very low surface temperatures over Ireland during Christmas 2000. Weather, 59: 15–19.

Prior, J. and Kendon, M. (2011) The disruptive snowfalls and very low temperatures of late 2010 Weather, 66: 315–321.

Graham, E. (2006), 200 mm falls in Ireland. Weather, 61: 151.

Burt, S. (2007), The Lowest of the Lows … extremes of barometric pressure in the British Isles, part 1 – the deepest depressions. Weather, 62: 4–14.



Burt, S. (2007), The Highest of the Highs … Extremes of barometric pressure in the British Isles, Part 2 – the most intense anticyclones. Weather, 62: 31–41.



Burt, S. (2006), Barometric pressure during the Irish storm of 6–7 January 1839. Weather, 61: 22–27.



Booth, G. (2007), Winter 1947 in the British Isles. Weather, 62: 61–68.


They had a special Young Peoples Edition in September 2015 which is available free of charge HERE

Another book you might find interesting is Dr. Kieran Hickey's 'Deluge - Ireland's Weather Disasters, 2009-2010

Your local library should be able to sort you out with a copy.

Happy researching!!

Lumi

Here's another

Hickey K.R. (2011) The historic record of cold spells in Ireland, Irish Geography, 44 (2/3) p303-321

sryanbruen

Lumi wrote: »

Here's another

Hickey K.R. (2011) The historic record of cold spells in Ireland, Irish Geography, 44 (2/3) p303-321

My God, you are an absolute saint. How come I've never seen any of these? These are what I was truly looking for.