Download A Sense of Place

A Sense of Place
Mississippi Studies
Unit I
Climate and Water Resources
Chapter 1
Chapter 1 Terms
• Location
• Place
• Human-environment
interaction
• Movement
• Region
• Latitude
• Longitude
• Global Positioning System
(GPS)
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Natural environment
Climate
Weather
Precipitation
Tornado
Hurricane
Hydrologic cycle
Surface water
Ground water
Aquifer
Drainage basin
The Five Themes of Geography
• Location - can be either absolute or relative
• Place - its “sense” is determined by physical and
cultural characteristics
• Human-environment interaction - how
humans use, adapt to, and change the environment
• Movement - concerns the ways people are linked
with regions, cultures, and people beyond their
immediate environment
• Regions - the world can be divided into these
either by using natural or cultural characteristics
Mississippi’s Geographic Regions
• Delta—Northwest Mississippi
• Hills—Central and North Mississippi
• Piney Woods—Southern Mississippi (We live
here)
• Gulf Coast—a narrow strip of land bordering the
Gulf of Mexico
Location
• Relative Location: describes where a place is
compared to other places.
• Mississippi’s relative locations:
▫ It is bordered on the east by Alabama, by
Tennessee on the north, and by Arkansas and
Louisiana on the West
▫ Two bodies of water also border Mississippi
 Gulf of Mexico to the South
 Mississippi River to the West
▫ 350 miles long from north to south and 180 miles
wide from east to west
Mississippi Relative Locations
Location (continued)
• Absolute Location: precise position on Earth’s
surface.
▫ Latitude: distance north or south from equator
▫ Longitude: distance east or west from the prime
meridian at Greenwich, England.
▫ Mississippi lies between 30 and 35 degrees north
latitude and between 88 and 91 degrees west longitude
▫ Global Positioning System (GPS): helps us
determine the precise location of a place
 Used by companies and individuals to locate places or
determine where they are
Natural Environment
• Includes such elements as climate, water,
landforms, soil, energy and mineral resources,
vegetation, and wildlife.
• Four spheres of earth
▫ Atmosphere: blanket or air that surrounds the
Earth’s surface
▫ Lithosphere: outermost shell of the solid earth
▫ Hydrosphere: contains all the water that exists on
and within the solid surface of Earth
▫ Biosphere: contains all the regions that support
the Earth’s living things
Climate
• Mississippi’s climate is a humid subtropical one.
▫ Humid throughout the year and receive ample
amount of rainfall
▫ Summers are warm and hot; winters are cool
• Climate: long-term average or weather
(temperature and rainfall)
• Weather: day-to-day conditions and changes
in the atmosphere for temperature, rainfall,
wind, cloudiness, humidity, and air pressure
Climate in Mississippi
• Mississippi’s climate attracts tourists in the winter for yearround activities such as fishing and golfing and its beaches
• Temperature in Mississippi
▫ Annual average temperature: 62 degrees Fahrenheit
 Lowest recorded: January 1966, Corinth (-19 degrees)
 Highest recorded: July 1930, Holly Springs (115 degrees)
▫ Summer
 Average Temperature: 81 degrees
 70 to 100 days over 90 degrees each year
▫ Winter
 January is coldest month
 Average temperature 43 to 48 degrees in northern half; 48 to 53
degrees in southern half
▫ More than 220 frost free days a year (good for agriculture)
Climate in Mississippi (continued)
• Precipitation in Mississippi
▫ Precipitation: rain, snow, sleet
▫ Mississippi’s average annual precipitation is 52
inches (about 15 inches in winter and spring; 13
inches in summer, and 9 inches in fall)
▫ Snow is very seldom in Mississippi
▫ Humidity is the ratio of moisture in the air. The
average relative humidity ranges from 76% (coast)
and 70% (north). Humidity makes summers
somewhat oppressive
Natural Hazards
• Thunderstorms: can result in flash floods, which
can cause property and crop damage and
occasionally result in death
• Lightning: 295 people killed or injured between
1959 and 1994
• Tornadoes:
▫ generally occur during the spring and early summer
when warm moist air moving northward from the Gulf
of Mexico meets colder air coming from the interior
United States
▫ Move counterclockwise and can reach speeds of up to
300 miles an hour
▫ Usually travel in a southwest-to-northeast direction
Tornadoes
Tornado Video
Natural Hazards (continued)
• Hurricanes
▫ storms that arise in the tropical Atlantic Ocean
and cover hundreds of square miles.
▫ Hurricane season is from June to October
▫ Storm becomes a Hurricane when winds are 74
miles an hour
▫ Hurricane Camille—August 1969—worst hurricane
to ever land in costal Mississippi
▫ Hurricane Katrina—August 2005—caused more
damage in Mississippi than any other hurricane
on record (made landfall in New Orleans, LA)
Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale
Water Resources
Why is water important?
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
It is vital to life
We drink it
We clean with it
We irrigate our crops with it
We transport goods on it
We generate electricity with it
We use it in our households and industries
Hydrologic Cycle
Rivers
• Mississippi River
▫ Forms Mississippi’s western border
▫ Drains the interior United States from the
Appalachian Mountains to the Rocky Mountains
Mississippi River
Rivers (continued)
• Mississippi has nine major and two minor river systems.
• Major River Systems that flow into the Mississippi River:
▫
▫
▫
▫
Yazoo River
Big Black River
Bayou Pierre-Coles Creek
Homochitto River
• River Systems that flow south:
▫
▫
▫
▫
▫
Noxubee-Tombigbee Rivers
Pearl River
Amite River
Pascagoula River
Biloxi-Wolf-Jourdan Rivers
Rivers (continued)
• Minor River systems:
▫ Yellow Creek (flows north into Tenn.)
▫ Mississippi River
 Tuscumbia
 Hatchie
Reservoirs
•
•
•
•
•
•
Pickwick Lake on the Tennessee River
Arkabutla Lake near Coldwater
Sardis Lake near Oxford
Enid Lake in Yalobusha County
Grenada Lake in Grenada
Ross Barnett Reservoir to the east of Jackson
• Most were build to assist in flood control in the
Delta