Term paper for B8800 section#
Warning
The term paper is only for those students enrolled in the course as EAS B8800. For those of you enrolled in EAS 48800 or SUS 7300B, this is not required.
Overview: literature review on a climate dynamics topic of your choice#
In this paper, you will summarize the state of understanding of some topic within the broad umbrella of climate science, based on a close reading of at least ten published peer-reviewed scientific articles on that topic.
The topic needs to be (at least predominantly) hard science as opposed to, say, climate policy, climate justice, climate economics, etc.
Motivation: one of the single most important skills in science is the ability to effectively synthesize the contents of many technical articles into a coherent picture of what is understood and what remains open regarding the given topic. (In fact, that’s probably true of most knowledge professions, including law, medicine, and engineering as well.)
A literature review, wherein you read widely on the topic and then synthesize your findings into your own written summary, is a great way to do that. It forces you to read widely about the topic and, in developing your thoughts on that reading into written prose, organizing and tightening your understanding.
This should be about something that you particularly want to learn more about. That said, for inspiration some example potential topics are:
Polar-amplified warming
Climate sensitivity vs. Earth-system sensitivity
The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation and climate
How has the Montreal Protocol influenced global temperatures?
How do aerosols influence deep convective clouds?
Physically, how would Solar Radiation Management geoengineering work?
Role of land-use and land-cover change in climate change
Atmospheric circulations on other terrestrial planets
How ocean biological processes are incorporated into climate models
On incorporating your own data analysis#
Since this is a literature review, it is not required to do any data analysis of your own. But, if you really want to, we can discuss it and decide together if it’s in scope. But even if you include your own data analysis, the paper should still primarily be a review.
Expectations#
Length#
The final submitted paper will be ~10-15 pages (not including the bibliography), double-spaced.
The abstract should not exceed roughly 250 words. The abstract should introduce the scientific question you’re exploring, motivate it, and briefly summarize the paper’s key findings, and possibly conclude with some outlook for future work etc. No more, no less.
The 10-15 page range is only a guideline: more important than the exact length is how clearly you convey your scientific story. If you can do that in, say, 8 pages, that’s great. (As the adage goes, “Sorry I wrote you a long [review paper]; I didn’t have time to write you a shorter one.”)
Or, especially if you include multiple large figures, perhaps you’ll end up needing, say, 18 pages.
Citations and bibliography#
You must include in-line citations for every nontrivial factual claim made in your paper. As such, at least in the main sections of your paper, nearly every sentence include a citation—and some sentences will include multiple, if either (1) multiple studies are relevant regarding the same point, or (2) the sentence brings up multiple, distinct nontrivial factual claims. Even if multiple consecutive sentences are derived from the same single source, that source should be cited in each individual sentence, not just the last one.
What is a “nontrivial factual claim?” A useful rule of thumb is the following: would a typical adult be able to find the information and understand it via a few minutes of Googling? If yes, it doesn’t need a citation. So, for example, the radius of Earth does not require a citation. But if not, it does require a citation. So, for example, the role Earth’s radius plays in the atmospheric angular momentum distribution would require one or more citations.
When in doubt, include a citation—much better to add a citation that could have been done without than to leave out a citation that really should have been there. This is because omitting needed citations can give the impression of academic disintegrity, which is very serious indeed. By comparison, excess citations are just moderately distracting/grating for the reader.
You must include a bibliography after the main text, comprising every paper that is cited in the main text and no others.
There is no particular required formatting style—MLM, APA, etc.—for the in-line citations or bibliography. Pick one, and use it consistently.
Figures#
You are encouraged to include figures taken from the papers you cite. Simply include in the figure caption language along the lines of “Reproduction of Fig.~X from Martinez et al. 2020.” Likewise for tables.
You can also, if you think it’s worth the effort and space, create your own figure or table, with a potentially useful figure being a schematic that somehow synthesizes the big picture across the studies you’ve surveyed.
Formatting#
In addition to being double-spaced, keep all other formatting (font, margins, etc.) standard-ish. I’d rather have it go to e.g. a 16th page with ample margins and a 11 or 12-pt font rather than it being squished into 15 pages.
Precision and concreteness#
As much as possible, avoid generic statements like “X influences Y”, where “influence” could alternatively be “effects”, “modifies” “changes” etc. Precisely how does X influence Y? In what sign, and if possible quantitatively by how much? Via what physical (or other) mechanism?
Editorializing#
It’s ok and even encoraged to give, as part of your Concluding section, some brief and narrowly scoped remarks regarding what you believe is important moving forward given what you learned from the papers you reviewed. But keep it to that, and avoid absolutist language: (e.g. “we must”, “imperative”, etc.). The job of this paper is to synthesize findings from academic studies, nothing more, nothing less.
Logistics#
How to submit#
My preference is for you to submit the final paper and intermediate steps as LaTeX files, shared with me via Overleaf.
That said, I will also accept Word, Pages, or PDF files. You can email them as attachments or share them with me via Google Drive…just use the Google Drive associated with your CUNY “citymail” email account, and share it with my email address that’s on the syllabus.
Timeline#
By Friday, February 16th, 2024: submit topic proposal (title and 1-2 sentence summary)
By Friday, March 1st, 2024: submit annotated list of 5 identified papers (1 sentence each summarizing what you expect it to cover).
By Friday, April 5th, 2024: having read your 5 approved papers, submit draft title, abstract, and 5 additional papers.
By Friday, May 3rd, 2024: submit complete (but rough) draft.
Final deadline: Wednesday, May 22nd, 2024 (by 11:59pm)