Meteorology/Climate

This page refers to the 2009 and 2012 topic of Meteorology. See Climate Notes for a general outline of Climate topics.

Meteorology Overview
Meteorology is a weather-based event designed to give students a basic understanding of the weather and an understanding of why the "weatherman" is always wrong. Its topic changes every year between Climate, Everyday Weather, and Severe Storms. A basic knowledge of fronts and air systems, among other common Meteorology topics, is suggested for every year.

The event is designed for up to 2 people.

Resources
The event does not allow any resources during competition, except for a piece of paper with notes (written/typed/double-sided etc.) and a non graphing calculator. This new rule change is because of the scandal that occurred at Nationals a year ago where one team wrote down all the questions on the test in their database and gave the database to another team (obviously presenting a problem).

Personal resources for studying prior to the competition are not restricted. You should have some sort of Meteorology textbook that has information about all three topics, so you can use it even after the topic changes. Other, more specific and advanced textbooks can also be useful to experienced participants. A useful tactic for studying is looking up topics on Google to get familiar with some subjects before going more specific. Wikipedia is also useful for this purpose.

Topics for Climate

 * 1) Composition and evolution of Earth's atmosphere
 * 2) weather vs. climate
 * 3) solar radiation
 * 4) Climatic zones
 * 5) Natural climatic variability
 * 6) Oceanic and Atmospheric circulation
 * 7) Earth's celestial cycles
 * 8) Paleoclimates of Earth's geologic history
 * 9) Human impact on climate change

These subjects are only recommended and not required so you can expect questions that dont fall into any of the above categories. Also be able to read different forms of charts graphs and tables.

Remember that these topics are what is RECOMMENDED, not necessarily what actually shows up on the test.

Topics
The meteorology topics cycle yearly in order to present students with a comprehensive course of the meteorological sciences. Ideally, students should have been on this event last year to be able to fully grasp this year's event.

History of Climate

 * 500BC Parmenides classifies world climates
 * 330BC Hippocrates wrote a treatise on climate
 * 61c Seneca complains of Rome’s Air pollution
 * 1644 Rev Holm makes first weather observation in America
 * 1683 Halley publishes first good map of winds
 * 1714 Fahrenheit introduces a Temperature scale
 * 1735 Halley proposes circulation cells
 * 1827 Fourier proposes possibility of CO2induced global warming
 * 1837 Agassiz used term ice age for a proposed glacial theory
 * 1840 Agassiz publishes “Studies on glaciers”
 * 1842 Adhemer proposes regular variations in orbits which explained ice ages
 * 1853 First international Meteorological Conference held in Brussels
 * 1857 Blodgit publishes “Climatology of the US”
 * 1864 Croll studies astronomical theory of ice ages
 * 1874 Chamblain suggested several ice ages separated by nonglacial epoch
 * 1878 IMO founded
 * 1935 IMO selected 1901-1930 as the basis for calculating climatic normal
 * 1964 Clean Air Act passed

General Weather/ Climate
General Weather/Climate- Average Daily Temperature- average of daily high and low, Average Monthly Temperature- average of the ADTs of a month, Yearly Average Temperature- averaging the 12 AMTs. Daily Temperature range- difference between the day’s high and low. Yearly temp. Range- difference between the average of the warmest and coldest month. Climate= a region’s composite weather

Koppen Climate Classification

 * Köppen Climate Classification-
 * GROUP A: Tropical/megathermal climates- Tropical rain forest climate (Af), Tropical monsoon climate (Am), Tropical wet and dry or savanna climate (Aw)
 * GROUP B: Dry (arid and semiarid) (climate’s precipitation is less than potential evapotranspiration)- Subtropical desert (Bwh), Subtropical steppe (Bsh), Mid-Latitude desert (Bwk), Mid-Latitude Steppe (Bsk)
 * GROUP C: Temperate/mesothermal climates- Mediterranean climates (Csa, Csb), Humid subtropical climates (Cfa, Cwa), Maritime Temperate climates or Oceanic climates (Cfb, Cwb, Cfc), temperate climate with dry winters (Cwb), Maritime Subarctic climates or Subpolar Oceanic climates (Cfc)
 * GROUP D: Continental/microthermal climate- Hot Summer Continental climates (Dfa, Dwa, Dsa), Warm Summer Continental or Hemiboreal climates (Dfb, Dwb, Dsb), Continental Subarctic or Boreal (taiga) climates (Dfc, Dwc, Dsc)
 * GROUP E: Polar climates- Tundra climate (ET), Ice Cap climate (EF)
 * GROUP H: Highland climates, in which altitude plays a role in determining climate classification

Solar Radiation/ Earth’s Energy Balance
Sunlight is the source of energy for the Earth’s oceans, atmosphere, land, and biosphere. This energy serves to heat the Earth to temperatures far above the minus 454 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Kelvin) of deep space. Averaged over an entire year and the entire Earth, the sun deposits 342 Watts of energy into every square meter of the Earth. This energy is output form the sun I the form of short-wave radiation, and is absorbed and reflected by earth as long-wave radiation.

Earth's Atmosphere
The atmosphere is one of the three major spheres: the biosphere and the geosphere being the other two.

Composition
The composition of gases in the Earth's atmosphere is as follows:


 * Nitrogen-78.08%
 * Oxygen-20.95%
 * Argon-0.93%
 * Carbon Dioxide-0.038%
 * trace amounts of other gases
 * water vapor, on average around 1%

Evolution
The modern atmosphere is sometimes referred to as Earth's "third atmosphere", in order to distinguish the current chemical composition from previous compositions. The original atmosphere was primarily helium and hydrogen. Heat from the still-molten crust, the sun, and a probably enhanced solar wind, dissipated this atmosphere. About 4.4 billion years ago, the surface had cooled enough to form a crust. It was heavily populated with volcanoes, which released steam, carbon dioxide, and ammonia. This led to the early "second atmosphere", which was primarily carbon dioxide and water vapor, with some nitrogen but virtually no oxygen. This second atmosphere had approximately 100 times as much gas as the current atmosphere, but as it cooled much of the carbon dioxide was dissolved in the seas and precipitated out as carbonates. The later "second atmosphere" contained largely nitrogen and carbon dioxide. However, simulations run at the University of Waterloo and University of Colorado in 2005 suggest that it may have had up to 40% hydrogen. It is generally believed that the greenhouse effect, caused by high levels of carbon dioxide and methane, kept the Earth from freezing. The oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere that we have now is the "third atmosphere". Between 200 and 250 million years ago, up to 35% of the atmosphere was oxygen (as found in bubbles of ancient atmosphere preserved in amber), but this percentage has dropped to what it is today. Currently, half of the atmosphere’s mass in within 5500 m of the earth’s surface.

Greenhouse Gasses
The greenhouse effect occurs when gases in the atmosphere trap the Sun's radiation, thereby making the Earth warmer. These gases are called "greenhouse gases" for their direct role in it. When these gases are ranked by their contribution to the greenhouse effect, the most important are:


 * water vapor, which contributes 36–70%
 * carbon dioxide, which contributes 9–26%
 * methane, which contributes 4–9%
 * ozone, which contributes 3–7%

Natural Climatic Variability
Temperature controls:


 * Latitude- main factor, higher the latitude, the lower the average yearly temperature and larger the yearly temperature range.
 * Altitude- average rate of decrease is 5.5° per 1000 feet of altitude.
 * Land/sea boundary- land areas hot summers and cold winters, sea areas have cooler summers and milder winters.
 * Prevailing winds- moderates temperature; effect doesn’t extend past the first high mountain range. Warm or cold ocean currents can affect the temperature of an area.

Rainfall controls:


 * Latitude- wet belt or dry belt,
 * Mountains- windward sides are rainy, leeward (rain shadow) are dry descending winds are called chinooks, and foehns, *Distance from the sea- not a guarantee, drier near interior of continent.

El Niño and La Niña
El Niño and La Niña are officially defined as sustained sea surface temperature anomalies of magnitude greater than 0.5°C across the central tropical Pacific Ocean. When the condition is met for a period of less than five months, it is classified as El Niño or La Niña conditions; if the anomaly persists for five months or longer, it is classified as an El Niño or La Niña episode. Historically, it has occurred at irregular intervals of 2-7 years and has usually lasted one or two years.

El Niño
The first signs of an El Niño are:

1. Rise in air pressure over the Indian Ocean, Indonesia, and Australia 2. Fall in air pressure over Tahiti and the rest of the central and eastern Pacific Ocean 3. Trade winds in the south Pacific weaken or head east 4. Warm air rises near Peru, causing rain in the northern Peruvian deserts 5. Warm water spreads from the west Pacific and the Indian Ocean to the east Pacific. It takes the rain with it, causing extensive drought in the western Pacific and rainfall in the normally dry eastern Pacific.

El Niño's warm current of nutrient-poor tropical water, heated by its eastward passage in the Equatorial Current, replaces the cold, nutrient-rich surface water of the Humboldt Current, also known as the Peru Current, which support great populations of food fish. In most years the warming lasts only a few weeks or a month, after which the weather patterns return to normal and fishing improves. However, when El Niño conditions last for many months, more extensive ocean warming occurs and its economic impact to local fishing for an international market can be serious. During non-El Niño conditions, the Walker circulation is seen at the surface as easterly trade winds, which move water and air warmed by the sun towards the west. This also creates ocean upwelling off the coasts of Peru and Ecuador and brings nutrient-rich cold water to the surface, increasing fishing stocks. The western side of the equatorial Pacific is characterized by warm, wet low-pressure weather as the collected moisture is dumped in the form of typhoons and thunderstorms. The ocean is some 60 cm higher in the western Pacific as the result of this motion.

La Niña
In the Pacific, La Niña is characterized by unusually cold ocean temperatures in the eastern equatorial Pacific, compared to El Niño, which is characterized by unusually warm ocean temperatures in the same area. Atlantic tropical cyclone activity is generally enhanced during La Niña. The La Niña condition often follows the El Niño, especially when the latter is strong.

Thermohaline Circulation
The term thermohaline circulation (THC) refers to the part of the large-scale ocean circulation that is thought to be driven by global density gradients created by surface heat and freshwater fluxes. The adjective thermohaline derives from "thermo-", referring to temperature, and "-haline", referring to salt content. These factors together determine the density of sea water. The thermohaline circulation is sometimes called the ocean conveyor belt, the great ocean conveyor, or the global conveyor belt. On occasion, it is used to refer to the meridional overturning circulation (often abbreviated as MOC).

Circulation Path
Wind-driven surface currents (such as the Gulf Stream) head polewards from the equatorial Atlantic Ocean, cooling all the while and eventually sinking at high latitudes (forming North Atlantic Deep Water). The formation and movement of the deep water masses at North Atlantic Ocean creates sinking water masses that fills the ocean basins and flows very slowly into the deep abyssal plains of the Atlantic. This high latitude cooling and the low latitude heating drives the movement of the deep water in a polar southward flow. The deep water flows through the Antarctic Ocean Basin around South Africa where it is split into two routes: one into the Indian Ocean and one past Australia into the Pacific. While the bulk of it upwells in the Southern Ocean, the oldest waters (with a transit time of around 1600 years) upwell in the North Pacific. At the Indian Ocean, some of the cold and salty water from Atlantic -- drawn by the flow of warmer and fresher upper ocean water from the tropical Pacific -- causes a vertical exchange of dense, sinking water with lighter water above.

The out-flowing undersea of cold and salty water makes the sea level of the Atlantic slightly lower than the Pacific and salinity or halinity of water at the Atlantic higher than the Pacific. These characteristics of the Pacific generate a large but slow flow of warmer and fresher upper ocean water from the tropical Pacific to the Indian Ocean through the Indonesian Archipelago to replace the cold and salty Antarctic Bottom Water. This is also known as 'Haline forcing (net high latitude freshwater gain and low latitude evaporation). This warmer, fresher water from the Pacific also flows up through the South Atlantic to Greenland, where it cools off and undergoes evaporative cooling and sinks to the ocean floor, providing a continuous thermohaline circulation. It is known as overturning. Hence, a recent and popular name for the thermohaline circulation, emphasizing the vertical nature and pole-to-pole character of this kind of ocean circulation, is the meridional overturning circulation.

Impact on Earth's Climate
As such, the state of the circulation has a large impact on the climate of the Earth. Because of this massive circulation, extensive mixing takes place between the ocean basins, reducing differences between them and making the Earth's ocean a global system. On their journey, the water masses transport both energy (in the form of heat) and matter (solids, dissolved substances and gases) around the globe. If this system were to shut down, this changed flow would alter the climates of the entire Earth, and there would be no more circulation of salt or water. This would change the ocean habitats as well, and would affect marine life.

Axial Tilt
The angle of the Earth's axial tilt (obliquity) varies with respect to the plane of the Earth's orbit. These slow 2.4° obliquity variations are roughly periodic, taking approximately 41,000 years to shift between a tilt of 22.1° and 24.5° and back again. When the obliquity increases, the amplitude of the seasonal cycle in insolation (INcoming SOLar radiATION) increases, with summers in both hemispheres receiving more radiative flux from the Sun, and the winters less radiative flux. As a result, it is assumed that the winters become colder and summers warmer. But these changes of opposite sign in the summer and winter are not of the same magnitude. The annual mean insolation increases in high latitudes with increasing obliquity, while lower latitudes experience a reduction in insolation. Cooler summers are suspected of encouraging the start of an ice age by melting less of the previous winter's ice and snow. So it can be argued that lower obliquity favors ice ages both because of the mean insolation reduction in high latitudes as well as the additional reduction in summer insolation.

Eccentricity
The Earth's orbit is an ellipse. The eccentricity is a measure of the departure of this ellipse from circularity. The shape of the Earth's orbit varies from being nearly circular (low eccentricity of 0.005) to being mildly elliptical (high eccentricity of 0.058) and has a mean eccentricity of 0.028 (or 0.017 which is current value). The major component of these variations occurs on a period of 413,000 years (eccentricity variation of ±0.012). A number of other terms vary between 95,000 and 136,000 years, and loosely combine into a 100,000-year cycle. The present eccentricity is 0.017.

Precession
Precession is the change in the direction of the Earth's axis of rotation relative to the fixed stars, with a period of roughly 26,000 years. This gyroscopic motion is due to the tidal forces exerted by the sun and the moon on the solid Earth, associated with the fact that the Earth is not a perfect sphere but has an equatorial bulge. The sun and moon contribute roughly equally to this effect. In addition, the orbital ellipse itself precesses in space (anomalistic precession), primarily as a result of interactions with Jupiter and Saturn. This orbital precession is in the opposite sense to the gyroscopic motion of the axis of rotation, shortening the period of the precession of the equinoxes with respect to the perihelion from 25,771.5 to ~21,636 years.

Station Models


This image is a station model. It can tell you many different things, like wind speed, wind direction, temperature, dew point, current weather, cloud cover, and pressure, given that you know how to read and interpret it. Some symbols have more information than others on them, but here is a basic overview:


 * The 48 is the current temperature
 * The 45 is the dew point
 * The whatever is in between the two numbers is the current weather on this one it is a light rain



This is what tells you information about the wind. The direction the stick faces shows the wind direction, and how many lines on the end of it show the wind speed. A half line signifies five knots, a full line ten knots, and a bold line 50 knots.



This indicates how much cloud cover there is. There are nine choices:
 * 1) clear (0%)
 * 2) 1/8 (12.5%)
 * 3) 1/4 (25%)
 * 4) 3/8 (37.5%)
 * 5) 1/2 (50%)
 * 6) 5/8 (62.5%)
 * 7) 3/4 (75%)
 * 8) 7/8 (87.5%)
 * 9) overcast (100%)

Scoring
Obviously, the team with the most correct answers win. Tie breaker questions are limited to 5.

Links
New York Coaches Conference
 * Koppen Scale
 * http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa011700b.htm
 * http://koeppen-geiger.vu-wien.ac.at/
 * Climate notes