Download WATER AND WEATHER

 What is the difference between weather and climate?
Think, Pair and Share your answers.
Weather refers to the short-term local
(ie, Mississauga short term forcast)
conditions of temperature and
precipitation.
Climate refers to the long-term trends
based on the accumulation of years of
data in a certain area (ie, Southern
Ontario)
Factors Affecting Earth’s Climate

The primary factor that affects climate is solar
radiation.
 About half of the Sun's energy radiated towards
Earth is absorbed, but this energy is not evenly
distributed across the surface.
 Factors that influence absorption are;
Transparency of the atmosphere (the ozone layer)
The angle of the Sun above Earth's surface – (latitude
and seasonal shifts of the Earth)
3. The reflectivity of the surface the sun hits (Water vs.
Land)
1.
2.
5 Rules of Climate
1. The farther away from the equator a site is,
the cooler it is. The Equator gets the most
amount of direct sunlight and is closer to the
sun because of the Earth’s shape.
2. The higher off of the Earth’s surface, the
cooler the air temperature. There is less heat
from the Earth’s core to warm the ground and
the surrounding
air.
3. Large bodies of water tend to moderate
temperatures (less swing in day/night)
4. Heat Capacity: a measure of how much thermal
-
energy (heat) a substance requires to increase its
temperature by a certain amount; A measure of
how much thermal energy a particular object can
store.
The higher the heat capacity of a substance, the
more thermal energy it can store
Soil and rock have lower heat capacities than
water. This means that soil and rock require
less thermal energy than water to increase in
temperature.
Large land masses have more extreme climates (huge
swing in day/night)
… SO…
High Heat
Capacity- long
time to heat up but
a long time to cool
down as well.
(Water)
Low Heat
Capacity –
quickly heats
up but cools
just as quickly
(Sand or land)
Heat Sinks - Anything that absorbs
thermal energy without becoming
much warmer is called a heat sink.
- Substances with high heat capacities,
such as water, are good heat sinks.
- Oceans can absorb a lot of energy from
the sun without evaporating. The
temperature of oceans remains fairly
constant.
5. Oceans heat or cool the air above their waters
(depending on their water temperature) creating
prevailing winds and air currents.
Ocean Currents Affect Weather
 The oceans carry heat from the tropics (equator)
to the higher latitudes, the area near the poles, to
maintain Earth's temperature.
The Gulf Stream
- The Gulf Stream is one of the strongest
currents. It moves along through the Gulf of
Mexico, past the east coast of the United States
and on to Northern Europe.
- Without the warm Gulf Stream, England and
other places in Europe would be as cold as
Canada.
El Niño/La Niña
- Changes in the ocean temperature can affect
weather patterns around the world. One of these
cyclic changes is the El Niño/La Niña effect.
- El Niños occur when there is an abnormal
warming of the ocean waters in the middle and
eastern equatorial Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.
World Climate Zones
Global Warming
- Global warming is an increase in the Earth's
average atmospheric temperature that causes
corresponding changes in climate .
- It may result from the greenhouse effect - an
atmospheric heating phenomenon where solar
radiation is readily transmitted inward through
the Earth's atmosphere but some heat radiation
is less readily transmitted outward.