The Atmosphere - Valhalla High School
Download
Report
Transcript The Atmosphere - Valhalla High School
The Atmosphere
Structure of the Atmosphere
The atmosphere is divided into four layers
– Troposphere
The lowest layer
is where most of the
weather occurs
– Stratosphere
– Mesosphere
– thermosphere
Weather
The short-term (a few hours or days)
condition of the atmosphere at a given
location
– Temperature, sky conditions,
precipitation, atmospheric
pressure, humidity, wind
speed, and wind direction
Meteorologists are
scientists who study
and predict the weather
Air Temperature
In the daily cycle, temperature
is usually lowest in the early
morning and warmest at mid-afternoon
In the season cycle, winters are generally
cold, while summers tend to be hot
Short term factors such as cloud cover and
regional weather systems affect
temperatures
– Clouds reduce daytime temperature by reflecting
sunlight back into space
– At night, clouds help hold heat energy to Earth
Air Temperature
Measured with a thermometer
– A bulb that contains liquid that
expands into a narrow,
calibrated neck when it is
heated and moves down the
neck when the temperature
decreases
When meteorologists record
official air temperature, the
thermometer is kept in a special
weather shelter to protect the
instruments from direct sunlight
Temperature Scales
A temperature of zero
on the Fahrenheit
scale is the
temperature of a
mixture of equal parts
ice, water, and salt
The freezing point of
water is what sets the
zero point on the
Celsius (centigrade)
scale
The point at which all
particle motion stops
is defined as zero on
the Kelvin scale
Air Pressure
Is caused by the weight of the atmosphere
Above each square inch of Earth’s surface
is a column of air the weighs 14.7 pounds
Measuring Air Pressure
A barometer is an instrument used to
measure air pressure using the dense liquid
metal mercury
Meteorologists measure
air pressure in millibars
Standard sea level pressure
is 1013.2 millibars
On a weather map, isobars
connect places that have the
same air pressure
Air Pressure Factors
If air is cooled, it contracts and becomes
denser
– This causes pressure to rise
If air is heated, it expands and becomes less
dense
– This causes pressure to fall
Humid air is lighter than dry air
– This is because water
molecules are lighter
than the gasses they
displace in the air
Moisture in the Atmosphere
When the air is holding as much moisture as
it can, the air is saturated
– The air’s ability to hold water vapor depends
upon the temperature
– The warmer the air, the more moisture the air
can hold
The dew point is the temperature
to which the air must be cooled to
become saturated
– If the temperature falls below the
dew point, condensation occurs as
water vapor changes to liquid water
Measuring Moisture
in the Atmosphere
Meteorologists use a sling psychrometer and a
dew-point temperature table to determine the dew
point
– The psychrometer consists of two thermometers mounted
side by side which can be swung through the air
– One thermometer measures the air temperature
– The bulb of the other thermometer is covered by a wet
cloth
– As the thermometers are swung through the air,
evaporated cooling causes the wet-bulb thermometer to
register a lower temperature
– When you subtract the wet-bulb temperature from the drybulb temperature, you can use the dew-point table to
determine the dew point
Psychrometer
Relative Humidity
Compares how much moisture the air is
actually holding with how much moisture it
could hold if the air were saturated
– It is expressed as a percent of saturation
Air is saturated if it is holding all the moisture
it can hold at its present temperature
Determined with a psychrometer and a
relative humidity table
The Wind
Wind is heat flow by convection within
the atmosphere
Winds are the result of uneven heating of
the Earth’s surface
– This uneven heating
causes differences
in air pressure
to develop
The Wind
Winds always blow from areas of high
pressure to areas of low pressure
– Winds blow fastest where the gradient in air
pressure is greatest, where the isobars are close
together
Measuring the Wind
To measure the wind, you need to determine
both the wind speed and the wind direction
Wind speed is measured with an
anemometer
– The cups catch the wind,
causing it to spin
Wind direction is indicated
by a wind vane, which
points into the wind
The Coriolis Effect
The Earth’s
rotation causes
winds to curve
– to the right in
the Northern
Hemisphere
– to the left in
the Southern
Hemisphere
The Coriolis Effect
Winds move in a clockwise outward spiral
around high-pressure systems
Winds move in a counterclockwise inward
spiral around low-pressure systems
The Coriolis Effect
Zones of
Convergence and Divergence
Rising warm, moist air at the center of the
low causes winds and air masses to blow
into the low-pressure system
The rising air cools, which causes cloud
formation and precipitation
The descending air turns a high-pressure
system into a single mass of cool, dry air
that spreads across the surface of Earth
Cloud Formation
Clouds form when rising air is cooled below
its dew point
Tiny particles
called
condensation
nuclei in the
air allow a
cloud to form
Precipitation
Rain and snow are the most common forms
of precipitation
Drizzle is small raindrops that fall slowly
Sleet is a partially frozen mixture of rain and
snow that occurs when the temperature is
just above freezing
Hail is in the form of ice balls, which usually
occurs in violent thunderstorms
– Hailstones begin as snowflakes that start to
melt and gather more moisture as they fall
Precipitation