Chapter 12 Meteorology
Section 1
What is meteorology? – the study of atomospheric phenomena
What does meteor mean? – flaming falling rock
What did meteor mean to the Greeks? – high in the air
List some atmospheric “meteors?” – clouds, raindrops, snowflakes, fog, rainbows
How are weather and climate different – weather is current climate is average over years
What heats the earth – the sun
Why are the tropics warmer than the poles? – more direct rays
Why do the tropics maintain a constant average temperature instead of continually heating up? redistributing of the heat through convection currents
9. What happens when cold air moves over a warm parking lot? – the air warms and rises
10. Define Air Mass – large body of air that takes on the characteristics of the area over which it forms
11. Looking at the figure 12-3 what air masses effect North Carolina? –maritime atlantic, gulf, continental
polar
12. What type of air do they bring to the area – maritime warm and humid, continental – cool humid
13. As air masses move what do they tend to do over the land? – take on the characteristics from the regions
its moving over
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Section 2
1. Describe the CORIOLIS EFFECT – the rotation of the earth along with the imbalance of heat creating
distinct global winds
2. Where do the trade winds occur? – equator to 30 degrees
3. Warm air moves in what direction ____up___________cold air moves in what
direction__down________________
4. Why would the Spanish throw their horses overboard? – hit the calm, couldn’t move ran out of food and
water and they couldn’t feed their horses
5. The prevailing westerlies flow between what latitudes? 30 – 60 degrees
6. Surface winds in this region move toward ___________the poles_____________
7. What wind system do we find at the poles – polar easterlies
8. What two related variables form wind? – temp, pressure
9. What is the jet stream? – narrow bands of fast moving westerly winds
10. Disturbances in the jet stream produce what? - weather
11. What is a front? – is the narrow region separating two air masses of different densities
12. A cold front contains what type of air? - cold dens air
13. How is a cold front represented on a weather map? – solid blue line with blue triangles
14. A warm front contains what type of air – warm air
15. How is a warm front represented on a weather map – solid red line with red half circles
16. What is the air doing in a high pressure system? – sinking and spreading out
17. What is the air doing in a low pressure system? – rising and surrounding are is replaced by air from
outside the system.
18. What system is associated with fair weather? Why? High pressure – as air sinks its hard to form clouds
19. What system is associated with cloudy weather? Why? Low pressure – as air rises it cools brining water
forming clouds