Weather Review 1

Proportional volume of gases composing dry air. Nitrogen and oxygen clearly dominate. “All others” includes neon, helium, methane, krypton and hydrogen.

Air pollutants are airborne particles and gases that occur in concentrations that endanger the health and well-being of organisms or disrupt the orderly functioning of the environment. Volatile Organic Compound = VOC (abbrev.)

Know how the temperature changes with an increase in altitude. All of the weather takes place in the troposphere. The tropopause marks the altitude where the temperature begins to decrease. Cumulonimbus clouds rarely rise higher than this level. Airplanes fly above the tropopause in the lower stratosphere.

Passive solar (green) building design takes into account the angle of the Sun. What is the design that does not permit the Sun’s rays from entering the window? What other features would you add that would help save energy and money?

At 70 degrees North latitude, the Sun never sets for 2 months At 80 degrees North latitude, the Sun never sets for 4 months At 90 degrees North latitude, the Sun never sets for 6 months

Average distribution of incoming solar radiation by percentage. More solar energy is absorbed by the Earth’s surface than by the atmosphere. Consequently, the air is not heated directly by the Sun, but is heated indirectly from the Earth’s surface.

Reflected light bounces back from a surface at the same angle at which it strikes that surface and with the same intensity. When a beam of light is scattered, it results in a larger number of weaker rays, traveling in all different directions. Usually more energy is scattered in a forward direction than is backscattered.

The atmosphere is a gaseous sea that contains a variety of types of particles; the two most common types of matter present in the atmosphere are gaseous nitrogen and oxygen. These particles are most effective in scattering the higher frequency and shorter wavelength portions of the visible light spectrum.

Light that is not scattered is able to pass through our atmosphere and reach our eyes in a rather non-interrupted path. The lower frequencies of sunlight (ROY) tend to reach our eyes as we sight directly at the sun during midday. While sunlight consists of the entire range of frequencies of visible light, not all frequencies are equally intense. In fact, sunlight tends to be most rich with yellow light frequencies. For these reasons, the sun appears yellow during midday due to the direct passage of dominant amounts of yellow frequencies through our atmosphere and to our eyes.

Albedo is a term for “reflectivity.” in general, light colored surfaces tend to be more reflective than dark colored surfaces and thus have higher albedos.

Most of the short-wave radiation from the Sun passes through the atmosphere and is absorbed by the Earth’s land-sea surface. The energy is then emitted from the surface as longer-wavelength radiation, much of which is absorbed by certain gases in the atmosphere. Some of the energy absorbed by the atmosphere will be re-radiated Earthward. This so-called “greenhouse effect” is responsible for keeping the Earth’s surface and lower atmosphere much warmer than it would be otherwise.

Formation of a cumulus cloud from a thermal

Much more precipitation Much less precipitation Orographic uplift

This type of uplift occurs in the central Florida peninsula Gulf of Mexico >>>> Atlantic <<< Ocean

Map shows average number of days each year with thunderstorms

Thunderstorm activity takes place constantly in the tropics, particularly around the equator (Inter-tropical Convergence Zone)

The previous map shows the average yearly counts of lightning flashes per square kilometer based on data collected by NASA satellites between 1995 and Places where less than 1 flash occurred (on average) each year are gray or light purple. The places with the largest number of lightning strikes are deep red. Much more lightning occurs over land than ocean because daily sunshine heats up the land surface faster than the ocean. The heated surface heats the air, and more hot air leads to stronger convection, thunderstorms, and lightning. The map also shows that more lightning occurs near the equator than near the poles.

Uplift occurs at frontal boundaries