Learning objectives
The Course gives the keys to understand causes and effects of main principal natural processes and phenomena. The Course contains several connected arguments:
- Astronomy
- Atmosphere and Hydrosphere of the Earth
- The world’s climates.
The Course gives the keys to understand causes and effects of main principal natural processes and phenomena.
Cartography examines the construction, interpretation and use of maps, a very important tool to show the distribution of phenomena and environmental characteristics.
Prerequisites
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Course unit content
The stars. The sun, internal structure and activity. Keplero and Newton laws. The Earth rotation. Phisical effects of the Earth rotation. The Earth revolution. Solstice and Equinox. Apparent path of the sun in the sky. The period of revolution: the year. Lengths of day and night. The twilight. The analemma. The time. Local mean time and standard time. World time zones.
Structure of the atmosphere. Solar radiation through the atmosphere. Air temperature. Daily and seasonal variation in air temperature. Heating and cooling of sea-surface and earth- surface. Atmospheric pressure. Cyclones and Anticyclones. The Wind. The Earth’s Wind systems. The ocean waters and their circulation. Atmospheric moisture. Clouds. Forms of precipitation. Air masses. Weather fronts. Cyclones of the middle latitude. Hurricanes and tornadoes.
The world’s climates. Strahler classification and Koppen classification. Climate diagrams.
Agents of landscape development. Physical and chemical weathering. Mass movements. Landslides classification. Stream energy and velocity. Erosion and deposition by streams. Fluvial pattern. The equilibrium profile. Glacier landscapes. Alpine glaciers. Glacier erosion and transportation. Depositional landforms. Snouts. Shoreline landscapes. Wave erosion, marine cliffs, beaches. Wind erosion. Transport by wind. Dune types. Karst landscapes.
The Earth forms. Earth ellipsoids in Cartography. Map projections. The geographic grid. Triangulation and photogrammetric survey. Map scale. The geographic coordinates: latitude and longitude. The Gauss-Boaga and UTM grids. Map symbols. Topographic contour maps. Contour lines. Earth relief features by contour lines. The Italian National Cartography and Regional Cartography. The topographic profile. The perimeter of a drainage basin. Interpretation and use of topographic maps.
Full programme
Astronomy
The sun, internal structure and activity. Earth in the solar system. Keplero and Newton laws. The Earth rotation. Physical effects of the Earth rotation. The Earth revolution. Solstice and Equinox. Apparent path of the sun in the sky. The period of revolution: the year. Lengths of day and night. The twilight. The analemma. The time. Local mean time and standard time. World time zones.
Atmosphere and Hydrosphere of the Earth.
Structure of the atmosphere. Solar radiation through the atmosphere. Air temperature. Daily and seasonal variation in air temperature. Heating and cooling of sea-surface and earth- surface. Atmospheric pressure. Cyclones and anticyclones. The wind. The earth’s wind systems. The ocean waters and their circulation. Atmospheric moisture. Clouds. Forms of precipitation. Air masses. Weather fronts. Cyclones of the middle latitude. Hurricanes and tornadoes.
Climatology.
The world’s climates. Strahler classification and Koppen classification. Climate diagrams.
Cartography.
The Earth forms. Earth ellipsoids in Cartography. Map projections. The geographic grid. Triangulation and photogrammetric survey. Map scale. The geographic coordinates: latitude and longitude. The Gauss-Boaga and UTM grids. The GPS. Map symbols. Topographic contour maps. Contour lines. Earth relief features by contour lines. The Italian National and Regional Cartography. The topographic profile. Interpretation and use of topographic maps.
Bibliography
A.N. STRAHLER: "Geografia fisica", PICCIN (1984)
A.N. STRAHLER: "The Earth Sciences", HARPER&ROW (1971)
A. STRAHLER, A. STRAHLER: “Corso di Scienze della Terra”, ZANICHELLI (1996)
T. McKNIGHT, D. HESS: “Geografia fisica. Comprendere il paesaggio”, PICCIN (2005)
S.PEREGO: “Cartografia. Lettura delle Carte topografiche”. Santa croce (2005)
Teaching methods
lessons and exercitations
Assessment methods and criteria
oral examination
Other information
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