Course Overview
McGill offers the only program in Canada that includes both atmospheric and oceanic sciences. Students benefit from a large professor-to-student ratio, access to state-of-the-art computing, remote sensing, and atmospheric chemistry laboratory equipment. The Department also has close ties with Environment Canada's numerical weather prediction centre in Dorval, Quebec. Most of our incoming M.Sc. students choose this (default) option. It allows considerable flexibility as to the choice of research topics, and gives students both a strong classroom knowledge of the subject as well as the opportunity to choose from a variety of thesis research projects. Students who do not choose to continue in academia find employment in a variety of areas and places; for example, working with Environment Canada as research associates or weather forecasters. The Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences offers courses and research opportunities in atmospheric sciences and physical oceanography leading to the M.Sc. and Ph. D. degrees. Research programs borrow from fundamental fields such as mathematics, statistics, physics, chemistry, and computing to address a broad range of topics relating to weather and climate. Examples include atmospheric chemistry, climate dynamics, cloud and precipitation physics, dynamical oceanography and meteorology, geophysical turbulence, numerical modelling, numerical weather prediction, ocean carbon budgets, and sea ice dynamics, as well as synoptic, mesoscale, and radar and satellite meteorology.