Download Chapter 2 Section 2

Chapter 2 Section 2 - CLIMATE
ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS:
DEFINE THE FOLLOWING TERMS
1. weather
7. current
2. climate
8. local wind
3. Tropics
9. rain shadow
4. drought
10. greenhouse effect
5. El Niño
11. rain forest
6. La Niña
WHAT FIVE ELEMENTS EFFECT CLIMATE?
BETWEEN WHAT 2 LINES ARE THE TROPICS?
HOW DO LANDFORMS EFFECT CLIMATE?
Why are some areas of the world full of lush forests while
others are covered with bone-dry deserts?
Scientists: Pace of Climate Change Exceeds Estimates
Five places to go before global warming messes them up
Weather and Climate
- “Climate is what you expect – Weather is what you
get”
- Earth is surrounded by gases – atmosphere
o Protects all life from the harmful affects of the
sun
o Where you will find differing weather patterns
Weather
- “It’s a beautiful day”
- changes in the atmosphere over a short period of
time.
o South Dakota record for fastest weather (temp)
change
Climate What Causes Climate?
- “Our summers are usually quite warm and our
winters are usually cold.”
- Predictable patterns of weather in an area over a
longer period of time.
o Temps and precip over a 30 years time span
The Sun and Climate
- What causes climate? Angle of the sun – Tilt of the
Earth
o Sun #1 –
 Gives off energy
 Gives off light
 Needed by all plants and animals to
survive
 Warm the air, water and land
 Warm gases rise
 Carried by wind and water (currents)
around the world
South Dakota Climate
Latitude and climate
- Latitude affects the angle at which the sun’s rays
strike the earth
o Low latitudes - tropics
 Most directly hit by the sun’s rays
 Torrid Zone
-
 Near the Equator
 Aka the Tropics – pg 54
o Between 23.5° N – Cancer and
o 23.5° South Capricorn
o almost always a hot climate
 unless you live in a high
elevation
- Outside the tropics the sun is NEVER directly
overhead.
o Mid latitudes
 Temperate Zone
-
-
 Between 66.5° North Lat and 23.5°
North Lat
 Between 66.5° South Lat and 23.5°
South Lat
o High Latitudes
 Polar/Frigid Zone
 Between 66.5° North Lat and 90°N
Latitude (North Pole)
 Between 66.5° South Lat and 90° S
Latitude (South Pole)
 Hit by sun’s rays very indirectly
 Always cool or cold
The Wind’s Effect on Climate
- Wind
o Movement of air
o Prevailing – page 54
-
 Winds that blow from the same direction
year to year
 Caused by warm air rising at the
equator moving north and south to
the poles
 Caused by cooler air sinking at the
poles and moving north and south
toward the equator
 Add in the fact that the earth is
rotating and it causes the winds to
curve (Coriolis Effect)
o Winds are in constant motion in many
directions.
 Trade winds
 Used by early traders/explorers
 Doldrums
 Area near the equator with little or
not wind
 Horse Latitudes
 Area near the tropics with relatively
calm winds.
- Monsoon winds
o Winds that blow in a certain direction at
certain times of the year.
 Usually months at a time
 Mainly in Asia (India) and Africa
 Bring changes in temps and heavy
rains
Storms
- Warm moist air systems meet cold air systems
o Thunderstorms
 Tend to be short
o 30 minutes
o Florida
 90 days per year






Thunder
Lightning
Hail
Heavy rain
Wind
Tornado tornado
 Funnel shaped windstorm
 Wind speeds up to 250 mph
o Measure on the Fujita Scale
o The Fujita Scale of Tornado
Intensity
o CREATE A TORNADO
 Hurricanes
 Violent tropical storms
 Form over Atlantic
 Late summer/early fall
 150 mph winds
 aka Typhoons in Asia
El Nino – The “boy” – page 56 El Niño
- named by Spanish explorers
- refers to the Christ Child because it effects South
America around Christmas time
- forms when cold winds from the east are weak
o central Pacific Ocean grows warmer
 more water evaporates
 clouds form
 clouds change wind and rain patterns
around the world
- Happens about every 3 years
- 1998
o unusual weather around the world
 flooding
 Peru
 Europe
 East Africa
 Southern US
 Drought
 Long period of extreme dryness
 Indonesia
o Caused forest fires
o Headlights at noon to see
through the smoke
 Causes warmer than usual winters
where we live in North America and
wetter conditions in the Midwest.
La Nina La Niña
- opposite of El Nino
- Spanish for the “girl”
- Strong, cooling east winds cool the Pacific
o Causes colder than usual winters where we
live in North America and drier than
normal in the Midwest.
- current conditions in the Pacific-Jan 2009 from
NOAA – National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration and NWS-National Weather
Service
- OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC INDICATORS CONTINUE TO
SUGGEST ENSO-NEUTRAL CONDITIONS PREVAILED FROM LATE
NOVEMBER THROUGH EARLY DECEMBER 2008, ALTHOUGH IN
RECENT WEEKS CONDITIONS IN THE EQUATORIAL PACIFIC
OCEAN HAVE BECOME SUGGESTIVE OF LA NINA
CONDITIONS. SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURES (SSTS) ARE BELOW
NORMAL ALONG THE EQUATOR THROUGHOUT MOST OF THE
EASTERN PACIFIC OCEAN WITH WATER TEMPERATURES
JUST UNDER THE SURFACE SUBSTANTIALLY BELOW NORMAL.
CLIMATE PREDICTION CENTER/NCEP
8 January 2009
Spanish Version
Synopsis: Developing La Niña conditions are likely to continue into
Northern Hemisphere Spring 2009.
During December 2008, negative equatorial sea surface temperature (SST)
anomalies strengthened across the central and east-central Pacific Ocean
(Fig. 1). Correspondingly, the latest weekly SST index values were -0.3°C in
Niño-1+2, -0.9°C in Niño 3, -1.1°C in Niño 3.4, and -0.7°C in Niño 4 (Fig. 2).
The subsurface oceanic heat content anomalies (average temperatures in the
upper 300m of the ocean, Fig. 3) also became increasingly negative as
below-average temperatures at thermocline depth strengthened in the central
and eastern Pacific (Fig. 4). Convection remained suppressed near the
International Date Line, and became more persistent near Indonesia during
December. Low-level easterly winds and upper-level westerly winds also
strengthened across the equatorial Pacific Ocean. Collectively, these oceanic
and atmospheric anomalies reflect the development of La Niña.
Ocean Currents
- moving streams of water in the oceans
- carry warm and cool waters around the world
- pg 57
- help exchange warm water near the equators with
cooler water from the poles
- affect the land that they flow next to
o Gulf Stream Current – North Atlantic Current
 Carries warm water to Western Europe
Landforms and Climate
- Shape of the land also effects climate
- Landforms and local winds
o Patterns of winds caused by landforms
o Occur because land cools quicker than nearby
water
 Sea breezes keep coastal areas cooler in
the day and warmer at night.
- Mountains
o Sun warmed air rises up the slope during the
day
o Cooler air moves down the mountains during
the evening
 Can create fog
Mountains, Temperatures and Rainfall
- Higher elevation = lower temps
o Mt. Kilimanjaro
o Thin air cannot hold suns energy as well
- Mountains affect rainfall
o As warm moist winds blow inland and rise as
they meet mountains the warm air rises and
cools and loses its moisture – rain or snow
 Oragraphic Affect

 for every 1000 feet you go up the temp
drops 3.5 degrees
o Windward
 Windward Side
 Side of the mountain facing the wind
 Moist and foggy
 Thick green vegetation
o Leeward (rain shadow) rain shadow
 Side of the mountain away from the
prevailing winds
 Drier side of the mountain
o Great deserts and dry basins are
located on the leeward side of
mountains – Badlands
The Impact of People on Climate
- People’s actions can affect climate
- Buildings built by people absorb more heat than do
plants making it warmer in big cities
- People running cars and burning fuels to warm
houses, factories and businesses warm big cities in
the winter
o Burning fuels also releases chemicals into the
air
 These chemicals hold even more of the
heat in – heat islands
The Greenhouse Effect
Greenhouse Effect
- For the past 200 years people around the world have
been burning fossil fuels
- coal
- oil
- natural gas
- releasing certain gases into the air that
have continued to build up over the years
- increasing the overall temp of the earth
Global Warming
- predicted by scientist to increase rapidly over the
next 30 years
- melting ice caps
- increasing severity of storms
- drying up water supplies
Clearing the Rain Forests – deforestation – located in the
Tropics
- located near the equator
- receive high amounts of precip each year
- some countries are cutting down the rainforests to
clear land for agriculture
o this can hurt the earth’s climate
 burning of the rainforests puts more
pollutants in the air – increases global
warming
 interrupts the water cycle
 does not allow trees moisture to
evaporate
o less rain falls
o rainforest may eventually
become dry areas and unable to
grow anything.
Destroying the rainforests also destroys an important area
for man to find plants/animal/insects to create medicines to
cure diseases. (Medicine Man)
Destroying the rainforest may also infect man with new
diseases never seen before (Ebola/Aids)
Section 2 Assessment pg 59