Global Hazards Flashcards
what causes and what are the causes of high pressure?
- cold air sinking
- clear and calm weather
what causes and what are the causes of low pressure?
- hot air rising
- stormy, cloudy weather
how do high/ low pressure belts create temperate climate zones?
here, air rises and cools to form clouds and therefore frequent rainfall (ferrel cell)
how do high/ low pressure belts create tropical climate zones?
low pressure causes heavy rainfall and thunderstorms (hadley cells)
how do high/ low pressure belts create polar climate zones?
cold air sinks causing (high pressure) causing dry, icy and strong winds (polar cell)
how do high/ low pressure belts create desert climate zones?
sinking dry air (high pressure) causes high temperature without conditions for rainfall (between hadley and ferrel cells)
4 examples of extreme weather
- wellington new zealand- high wind speeds 248 km/h- caused by surrounding mountains funnelling wind
- puerto lopez (equator)- hish temp leads to rapid condensation and heavy rainfall
- atacama, chile- andes mountains block moist warm air travelling further west causing rainfall to east but dryness to the west
- mawsynram india- 11m rainfall per yr- reversal of air conditions/ directions from sea to land, contributing to monsoons in summer
why is the weather in australia so extreme?
it is such a huge country that it has several different climate zones causing extreme high temp in central australia and below freezing in the south-west
what is a tropical storm?
a strong storm near the equator with winds moving in a circle that feeds on energy from a warm ocean
how are tropical storms formed?
- sun heats ocean in summer and autumn
- once it reaches 27 degrees, the rising warm moist air causes low pressure
- this turns into a thunderstorm which causes air to be sucked in from trade winds
- trade winds blowing in opposite direction and rotation of earth (coriolis effect) causes thunderstorm to spin
- after 74mph, tropical storm is born
- cool air sinks in centre of storm causing calm clear conditions
- when storm hits land it loses energy source (ocean) and loses energy
what areas are prone to tropical storms?
between tropics of cancer and capricorn- pacific, indian and atlantic ocean
how does el nino lead to different weather?
- usually, warm ocean currents off coast of australia cause moist warm air to rise (low pressure) and condense causing storms and rain in australia (but dry weather from high pressure in south america
- el nino reverses this cycle
- cool water off coast of australia reverse wind direction causing dry sinking air (high pressure) over australia causing dry hot weather (often drought) but warm wet weather (often floods) in south america
what is la nina?
the same as the normal weather pattern across the pacific ocean between australia and south america but more intense
* this causes floods in australia (very low pressure)
* and droughts in south america (very high pressure)
what causes drought?
very high pressure from cool seas making cool, dry air which sinks
what are trade winds?
winds that blow from high pressure to low pressure belts