Thank you and goodbye

Congratulations on completing the course!

Hopefully, by the end of this week you should feel that you are happier:

• explaining some of the processes which transfer energy through the Earth system, including the transient effects of volcanoes and changes in the Earth’s orbit, and how these processes relate to the Earth’s climate.
• applying your understanding of mid-latitude weather systems to the analysis of weather data and images.

You can download the online teaching resources for Week 3 or for the entire course.

We hope you have enjoyed this introductory course, Come Rain or Shine: Understanding the Weather. If you would like to continue your studies or find more resources online we’ve listed some follow up links below.

From the University of Reading

The University of Reading has a world-class reputation for the quality of our teaching, research and links to business.

The Department of Meteorology is the only UK university department to offer a full range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses in meteorology. The department is staffed by world-leading meteorologists, oceanographers and climate experts and internationally renowned for our excellent research and teaching in atmospheric, oceanic and climate science.

You can find out more about the Undergraduate and Postgraduate courses taught at the Department of Meteorology. Or why not come visit the University of Reading on one of our open days? You can meet our students, chat to our staff, attend sample lectures, join an accommodation tour or just explore our award-winning campus. Find out more information about our open days here.

You can find out more about all our free, online courses by following UniRdg_OOCs on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.

From the Royal Meteorology Society

The Royal Meteorological Society is the professional and learned society for weather and climate.

The Society serves not only those in academia and professional meteorologists, but also those whose work is affected in some way or other by the weather or climate, or simply have a general interest in the weather. The membership includes scientists, practitioners and a broad range of weather enthusiasts.

For weather enthusiasts, Theweather club provides a great resource of information. Their website is full of interesting and educational content that captures the many faces of the weather – its beauty, its power, its occasional absurdity and its fragility in the face of human activity.

Teachers from around the world may find the MetLink website particularly useful. Run by the Royal Meterological Society, the website specialises in materials for teaching weather and climate in schools and supporting teachers. The website has teaching resources, fieldwork and experiment ideas, lesson plan downloads, information on the latest IPCC findings and much more.

Thames Water

We are grateful for the support from Thames Water in making this course possible.

Further reading

You may like to continue your studies by looking at the Online teaching resources or you may find the following books useful:

Understand the weather: teach yourself by Innes, Peter (2010)

Fundamentals of weather and climate by McIlveen, Robin (2010)

The cloud-spotters guide by Pretor-Pinney, Gavin (2006)

Clouds in a glass of beer: simple experiments in atmospheric physics Craig (2003).

30-second meteorology: the 50 most significant events and phenomena, each explained in half a minute by Scaife, Adam (2016)

Weather a concise introduction by Hakim, Gregory J. and Patoux, Jérôme (2017)

30-Second Climate: the 50 most topical features, measurements and phenomena, each explained in half a minute by Haigh, Joanna D. (2019)

Get extra benefits, upgrade your course

If you’d like to, you now have the option to upgrade this course which includes:

• Unlimited access to the course

Go at your own pace with unlimited access to the course for as long as it exists on FutureLearn.

• A Certificate of Achievement

To help you demonstrate your learning we’ll send you a Certificate of Achievement when you become eligible.

Thank you for joining us and we hope you’ve enjoyed your time with us. We’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions regarding how we might improve it for the next run so please leave your comments below.

Thank you!