Air masses, fronts, and cyclones

Question 1

What is an air mass?

Answer 1

large body of air, thousands of km2 across, with similar temperature and humidity in horizontal directions

Question 2

What is a cold front? A warm front? A stationary front? An occluded front?

Answer 2

cold front- cold air encroaches on warm
warm front- warm air enroaches on cold
stationary- warm and cold front clash and don’t move
occluded front- cold front overtakes warm front, goes under warm front

Question 3

What are the properties of a cold front?

Answer 3

warm air is displaced by desnse cold air, this creates uplift where we get cumulonimbus clouds as it passes a lot of ppt, which then blows out in cirrostratus clouds and Ci clouds

Question 4

What are the properties of a warm front?

Answer 4

move slower than cold front, has a wider area of ppt and goes from fog to rain to snow, is mostly started with stratus clods, nimbostratus clouds, alto stratus clouds, cirrus stratus clouds and then cirrus clouds

Question 5

What is a cyclone?

Answer 5

is atmosphere rotating around a low pressure (get anti clockwise wise flow)

Question 6

What is a anti cyclone?

Answer 6

atmosphere rotates around a high pressure, get clockwise flow

Question 7

In a low pressure cyclone what happens to air?

Answer 7

have air converge at bottom and rise and diverge, no clear skies

Question 8

In a high pressure cyclone what happens to air?

Answer 8

have air converge and sink and then diverge at bottom, clear skies

Question 9

Where and why do mid-latitude cyclones form?

Answer 9

form along polar fronts where there a lot of low pressure systems, these lows are formed at topographic obstruction and along wide temp gradients, these lows are formed by the wavy jet streams rossby waves (created by eddies in air) which lead to divrgence and convergence aloft

Question 10

What are jet streaks?

Answer 10

areas of really high wind speed in jet stream, intensifies cyclones

Question 11

What are longwaves versus shortwaves?

Answer 11

are important for cyclogenesis (created a mid latitude cyclone), shortwaves travel through long waves and increase curvature (highs and lows)

Question 12

How does vertical motion contribute to cyclogenesis?

Answer 12

Uplift of warm air with cause condensation, lead to latent heat release and this will add energy to cyclone

Question 13

What is cycloisis? How does it happen?

Answer 13

when temperature gradient becomes stable then energy for cyclone is removed you get death of cyclone.