Meteorology/Climate

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. This year, severe weather is the topic of choice for this event. Good things to know about every year are fronts and air systems.

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)

The event is designed for up to 2 people.

Recommended Subjects for Climate [2009]

 * 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.

The Recommended Subjects Covered for Severe Storms [2008]

 * 1) General knowledge of meteorology (basically last year's topics)
 * 2) Weather radar, Doppler, infrared, visible, and satellite water vapor images
 * 3) Global circulation patterns
 * 4) Thunderstorms, mid-latitude cyclones, tornadoes, and hurricanes
 * 5) Saffir-Simpson, Fujita, and E-Fujita Scales
 * 6) Lightning and other storm hazards (i.e. hail, snow)
 * 7) Storm tracks across North America
 * 8) METAR
 * 9) Remember that these topics are what is RECOMMENDED, not necessarily what actually shows up on the test.

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

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.

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