meteorology Flashcards
what are the weather observations?(6)
- Atmospheric pressure, barometer. Mean sea-level atmospheric pressure on earth.
- Air temperature, thermometer
- Wind speed and direction, anemometer
- Humidity, hygrometer
- Rain fall, rain gauge
- Clouds, cloud ceiling instrumental, cloud cover, visual estimate, and cloud type.
what are wind speed keys?
Wind speed keys showing direction and how many knots.
what is a wather station report?
Typical weather station report- shows the pressure, temperature, current weather, wind direction, weather since last measurement, dew point, and wind speed.
what is Sonde?
• Sonde: instrumented weather balloon, global coverage since 1950’s. .
what was the NASA 1991?
• NASA upper atmosphere research satellite includes laser-doppler anemometry. Deployed 1991. crashed into pacific in 2011.
what is Dropsonde?
Dropsonde- dropped from aircraft above tropical cyclones, and hurricanes to improve prediction.
what des red mean on global weather stations?
- Global weather stations. Red is silent stations, which are war zones.
- Satellite coverage of all types. Very important. Increase in satellite data
what is water in the atmosphere?
Water vapor colourless, clouds and fog are condensed water droplets.
The transitions of water either releases heat into the environment, or takes in heat from the environment.
what role does humidity have?
- Several ways of giving atmospheric water vapour content.
- Behaviour of rising and descending air: a rising parcel will always expand due to the decreasing pressure. Loses energy as molecular speed slow so loses temperature. As pressure increases air parcel contracts again, and the molecular speed increases, t increases.
what is absolute humidity role?
• a parcel of air will expand as it rises due to decreased pressure, and compress as it descends- due to increased pressure.
what is absolute humidity?
Absolute humidity: mas of water vapour/ volume of air = water vapour density.
how does absolute humidity change with air rising?
Since absolute humidity, mass/volume, then it will decrease as air rises and increases as air descends. Therefore, even though airs vapour content remains constant, the absolute humidity changes.
Need to express in a way not influences by changes in air volume.
what is specific humidity?
mass of water vapour/total mass of air.
what is the specific and mixing ratio?
Both specific humidity and mixing ratio remains constant as long as water vapour not added to or removed from the parcel.
what is vapour pressure?
Moisture content of the air also quantified by measuring the pressure exerted by the water vapor in the air.
what does the total pressure in an air parcel show?
Total pressure in an air parcel is due to collision of all molecules against edge of parcel. The sum of all pressures of the individual gases.
what is the actual vapur pressure?
The “actual vapour pressure” is an estimate of the total amount of water vapour in the air.
what is the saturation vapour pressure?
The “saturation vapour pressure” is the maximum amount of water vapour that can be in the air at a given pressure and time.
what happens in a closed container to evaporation?
In closed container, evaporation will continue until as man molecules return to the liquid as they escaped.
when is there an equilibrium with vapour?
At this point, there is an equilibrium. And the vapour is saturated.
Since the energy of the molecules increases with T, more molecules escape and so the saturation vapour pressure increase with increasing temperature.
what happens to vapour at boiling point?
At the boiling point: saturation vapour pressure= atmospheric pressure.
Evaporation vs boiling: evaporation is a surface process, vapour pressure in liquid too low to form bubbles
what is boiling?
Boiling, is a volume process, saturation vapour pressure= atmospheric pressure, so bubbles can form.
Boiling point varies with atmospheric pressure. Boiling point lower with lower pressure, higher altitude.
Phase diagram for H2O. There is a critical point.
what does the saturation vapour pressure depend on?
The saturation vapour pressure depends manly on the air temperature. Saturation vapour pressure is less for ice than for water at the same tempertaure, because harder for water molecules to escape in ice surface.
what is absolute humidity?
Absolute humidity: the mass of water vapour in a fixed volume of air
what is actual vapour pressure?
Actual vapour pressure: amount of water vapour in terms of the amount of pressure that the water molecules exert
what is saturation vapour pressure?
Saturation vapour pressure: pressure that the water molecules would exert when in equilibrium with air at a given temperature.
what is relative humidity and when does it increase and decrease?
Relative humidity= water vapour content/ water vapour capacity
= actual vapour pressure/saturation vapour pressure x100
Increases with increase in vapour content. Decreases with increase in temperature, as warmer water has higher saturation.
what is dew point?
Dew point:
Temperature to which air needs to be cooled, with no change in air pressure our moisture content for saturation to occur. (to form cloud, fog, dew, frost) 10 degrees is saturated with water vapour
why should temperature in a parcel be cooled?
• Temperature to which a parcel of moist air must be cooled, with pressure and mixing ratio constant for a parcel to becomes saturated.
what is a high and low dew point?
- High dew point: high water vapour content
* Low dew point: low water vapour content
why is dew point good for weather?
• Key measurement to predict formation of dew, frost or fog.
May be used to estimate cumulus clouds base.
what are dew point and night temperature differences?
• Dew point and night temperature differences- expected min. T lower with decreasing dew point.
Reason: lower dew point means less greenhouse water vapour near ground, so less heat radiated back to ground, more lost upwards.
what is the wet bulb thermometer?
The wet bulb thermometer:
• evaporation cooling cools wet bulb thermometer. Due to latent heat of vaporisation.
• Web bulb T is the lowest T that can be reached by evaporative cooling
• Form differences in temperature can calculate dew point and relative humidity.
• When air reaches saturation vapour pressure, evaporation = condensation
• No heat output so wet bulb same T as dry thermometer.
what percentage of the warming effect is due to water vapour?
Water vapour is 60% contribute to the warming effect
what is water vapour content of the atmosphere controlled by?
Water vapour content of the atmosphere is controlled by temperature. Sustained greenhouse effect is driven by non-condensable gases, mainly CO2.
what do the gases cause the temperature to do?
These gases cause the temperature to rise, and then leads to an increase in the water vapour that further increase the temperature, which is positive feedback.
how do the gases generate a positive feedback?
Generates positive feedback accelerating warming, in turn- leading to more water vapour in the atmosphere. On early venus, this led to a runaway greenhouse effect.
when does frost form?
If dew point T is at or below freezing and then frost forms.
when does dew form?
Dew forms when air in constant with these surfaces cools by conduction
If air cools to dew point water avaour condenses on surfaces
what forms the fog and clouds?
• Airborne particles are required for water vapour to condense or deposti on the produce cloud droplets
what are cloud condensation nuclei?
Cloud condensation nuclei: CCN. Also known as hydroscopic nuclei, water vapour rapidly condenses on their surfaces