Lab Report Weather Patterns
Lab Report Weather Patterns
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• A storm darkens the sky at the mouth of the Russian River, north of
Bodega Bay, Calif. The storm was driven largely by an "atmospheric
river" over California. (Image credit: NOAA)
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• Global winds
• Earth’s orbit around the sun and its rotation on a tilted axis causes
some parts of Earth to receive more solar radiation than others. This
uneven heating produces global circulation patterns.offsite link For
example, the abundance of energy reaching the equator produces hot
humid air that rises high into the atmosphere. A low pressure area
forms at the surface and a region of clouds forms at altitude. The air
eventually stops rising and spreads north and south towards the
Earth's poles. About 2000 miles from the equator, the air falls back to
Earth's surface blowing towards the pole and back to the equator. Six
of these large convection currents cover the Earth from pole to pole.
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• Reducing human-caused air pollution in North America & Europe
brings surprise result: more hurricanes
• NOAA studied about four decades of tropical cyclones revealing the
surprising result that reducing particulate air pollution in Europe and
North America has contributed to an increase in the number of tropical
cyclones in the North Atlantic basin and a decrease in the number of
these storms in the Southern Hemisphere. The study also found that
the growth of particulate pollution in Asia has contributed to fewer
tropical cyclones in the western North Pacific basin.
• Air masses
• These global wind patterns drive large bodies of air called air masses.
Air masses are thousands of feet thick and extend across large areas of
the Earth. The location over which an air mass forms will determine its
characteristics. For example, air over the tropical ocean becomes
exceptionally hot and humid. Air over a high latitude continent may
become cold and dry. You have probably noticed the temperature
rapidly dropping on a nice warm day as a cold air mass pushed a warm
one out the way.
• Fronts
• The location where two air masses meet is called a front. They can be
indirectly observed using current weather maps, which can be used to
track them as the move across the Earth. Cold fronts, generally shown
in blue, occur where a cold air mass is replacing a warm air mass.
Warm fronts, shown in red, occur where warm air replaces cold air.
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• What is the jet stream?
• The term jet stream is used increasingly in both weather forecasts and
news reports of extreme events, from cold spells and flooding to
heatwaves and droughts. But what is the jet stream, and why do we
care about it so much?
• Jet streams
• Coriolis effect
• As they travel across the Earth, air masses and global winds do not
move in straight lines. Similar to a person trying to walk straight across
a spinning Merry-Go-Round, winds get deflected from a straight-line
path as they blow across the rotating Earth. In the Northern
Hemisphere air veers to the right and in the Southern Hemisphere to
the left. This motion can result in large circulating weather systems, as
air blows away from or into a high or low pressureoffsite link area.
Hurricanes and nor'easters are examples of these cyclonic systems.
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• When to expect the warmest day of the year
• During the summer months, most areas in the United States approach
their highest temperatures for the year. To give you a better idea of the
warmest time of year for your area, NOAA has created “Warmest Day
of the Year” maps.
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• Improvements and Further Investigation:
controlling more variables, improving measurement technique, increasing
randomization to reduce sample bias, blinding the experiment, and adding
control or placebo groups