Lesson 10.1 Different Factors Affecting Climate

• Climate change is regarded as the greatest significant issue that the human race faces today because of the enormous changes that are being observed and experienced.
• quantifies the velocity of gases. anemometer
• Determines the height of the cloud base. Ceilometer
• Latitude is considered the most important factor that determines climate. It determines how much and how long the sun shines on the planet.
• Arctic regions found at 66.5N of the North Pole.
• Tropic refers to the zones within latitudes between 5/10 to 35.
• temperate refers to zones in a range of latitudes between 40 and 60/70.
• Maritime climate is strongly affected by the oceans and has fairly steady temperatures across the seasons.
• Continental climate increases in a land characterized by warmer summers and colder winters due to the thermal inertia possessed by the land.
• Ocean currents covering about 71% of the earth and with a capacity to absorb about twice as much of the sun's radiation (in comparison with the atmosphere and land surface), world oceans are a major driving force of the climate system.
• Wind-drive circulation which is forced by wind stress on the sea surface including a momentum exchange.
• Thermohaline circulation which is an "overturning" circulation in which warm water flows poleward near the surface and is subsequently converted into cold water that sinks and flows equatorward in the interior.
• Thermohaline is derived from thermo which means "temperature" and haline which refers to "salt content.
• it creats an apparent force known as "coriolis force" that deflects moving air to the right of its initial direction in the Northern Hemisphere and the left of its initial direction in the Southern Hemisphere.
• the pressure gradient force and the coriolis force are in balance and the wind blows paralled to the isobars. this i called geostrophic wind.
• The prevailing wind is the most frequent wind direction a location experiences.
• Altitude affects temperature and pressure.
• Relief refers to the shape of the land's surface.
• They tend to store heat in warm periods and release it into cold periods, they are called heat sinks.
• Thermal inertia refers to the tendency of heat to transfer more slowly to some material bodies than others, which creates an apparent lag between temperature changed between two material bodies.
• Specific heat capacity is the heat (energy) that must be transferred to material for one gram to experience a one-degree rise in temperature.
• The resulting uneven heating of the air creates small areas of local circulation called convective currents.