Weather Y2 (Placeholder name) Flashcards
What is altitude?
The height of the land
Why goes the temperature rise as the altitude of a land falls?
-Larger area of land which is heated by the sun
-More atmospheric gases and particles (carbon dioxide and water) which traps heat from the warm ground
-Denser air at higher altitudes which absorb more heat from the earth’s surface, resulting in higher temperatures
What is latitude?
The angle of incidence
Why does places nearer the latitude hotter?
-The places there receive a higher concentration of Sun’s rays, having more sunshine.
-when the angle of incidence is higher, the sun’s rays are more concentrated on the area. Thus being hotter
What is the maritime effect?
It is the effect that large ocean bodies have on the climate of coastal areas
What does the maritime effect do?
-During summer, air over the sea is cooler than air over the land because land heats quicker then the sea
-The cooler air over the sea lowers the temperature of coastal areas, therefore cooler than places further inland.
What is the continental effect?
-The effect that continental surfaces have on the climate of inland areas.
-Inland areas experience warmer summers and colder winters
What is cloud cover?
It is the extent of the sky covered by clouds
What does the presence of cloud covers cause?
-A thick cover reflects some of the incoming solar radiation so that the land is not heated up a lot during the day
-At night, the clouds prevent much outgoing terrestrial radition from escaping back to space so that the temperatures fall slightly
-Equatorial regions usually have thick cloud thus they have small diurnal range of temperature
What does the absence of cloud covers cause?
-Little or no cloud cover allows a lot of solar radiation to reach the earth’s surface in the day, raising temperature
-At night, a lot of outgoing terrestrial radiation escapes back to space causing temperatures to fall a lot
What is the relative humidity?
Relative humidity is the portion of the actual amount of water vapour
what is calcuation for relative humidity?
Amount of water vapor in the air(g/m^3)/maximum amount of water vapor the air can hold (g/m^3)
What is rainfall?
It refers to the amount of rain that an area receives over a period of time.
What are the types of rain?
Conventional rain
Relief rain
What are the descriptors for mean annual temperature?
High: over 20 degrees
moderate: 10-20 degrees
low: below 10 degrees
What are the descriptors for annual temperature range?
High: over 15 degrees
moderate: 5-15 degrees
low: below 5 degrees
What are the descriptors for annual rainfall?
Very high: over 2000mm
High: 1200-2000mm
Moderate: 750-1200mm
Low: 250-750mm
Very low: Below 250mm
How is rain formed?
-Sun heats up surface of the Earth and the air above it is warmed up and water is evaporated
-As warm air rises, it begins to cool and condenses to water droplets
-It gathers to clouds and falls when they’re too heavy and the cycle repeats
How is convectional rain is formed?
-On hot days, the air in contact with the warm ground is heated by conduction. The warm air expands and becomes lighter than the surroundings and is said unstable. The unstable warm air, which can hold lots of moisture, rises in a convention current.
-As it rises to great heights and cools to dew point temperature, condensation occurs, forming water droplets and merging to become bigger forming clouds and falls back to earth when they are too heavy
How is relief rain formed?
-Relief rain is formed when moist onshore air is forced to ascend the windward slope of mountain. The rising air expands and cools and further rise and cool. The rising air saturated at dew point will cause the water vapor in the air to condense into water droplets around atmosphere particles to form clouds and fall on windward slopes.
What is pressure? (not tested yet)
It is the downward force exerted by the weight of air per unit area on the Earth’s surface.
Air pressure is based on? (not tested yet)
Altitude
Temperature
How is air pressure based on altitude? (not tested yet)
Air is a tangible material and has mass and will be held downwards by gravity
*Thus lower altitude higher pressure
How is air pressure based on temperature? (not tested yet)
-In warm areas, as the molecules are heated up, they move faster and further apart. Thus air is less dense and warm air rises. Resulting in low pressure. (and vice versa)
