CHAPTER 17 Weather and Climate - Mr. Barrow's Science Center

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ClimateReading Guide■ Describe what determinesclimate.■ Explain how latitude, oceans, andother factors affect the climate ofa region.■ Classify climate systems.■ Describe climate distribution overthe United States.Climate affects the way you live.Review Vocabularyboreal: relating to northern regionsNew Vocabularybiospherecontinental climatemaritime climate•lee rain shadowsea breezeClimate and WeatherWhat is the climate where you live? Traditionally, climatemeans the long-term average of weather conditions—wind,temperature, precipitation, moisture, and other aspects ofweather. Climate also describes the annual variations of theseconditions and their extremes.Averages of data collected monthly over 30 years or longer areused to define climatic normals. These normals do not describeusual weather conditions of an area, but are only averages of conditionsmeasured at one local site. For example, theconditions in a city might vary from what is measuredat an airport weather station outside the city.Figure 11 All of the five spheresshown below interact. Each spherecauses changes in, and is changedby, the others.Research What does the prefixcryo- mean?SpaceClimate System Climate is best considered aspart of the whole Earth system. This biogeophysicalsystem can be visualized as five spheres thatinteract to create the environments in which welive, as shown in Figure 11. The atmosphereincludes the air around us. The biosphere iseverything organic, including plants, animals,and humans. The hydrosphere is liquid water inoceans, lakes, rivers, soil, and underground. Thecryosphere is frozen water in snow, ice, and glaciers.Finally, the lithosphere is the solid Earth,including its soil, rocks, and mantle.AtmosphereBiosphereCryosphereHydrosphere LithosphereSECTION 3 Climate 529
Topic: World ClimatesVisit gpescience.com for Weblinks to data on mean annualtemperature and rainfall ofworld cities.Activity Use a world atlas,globe, or large classroom map tofind a city corresponding to eachof the eight climate divisionsshown in Figure 17.Sphere Interactions Gases, water, soluble materials, energy,and particulates are exchanged among these spheres. Eachsphere affects all the other spheres. For example, volcanic eruptionstransfer gases and particles from the lithosphere to theatmosphere. The atmosphere provides and regulates theamount of water in the hydrosphere and cryosphere, and provideswater, carbon, and oxygen for the biosphere. Throughwinds, atmosphere causes erosion, creates soil, and absorbs andemits energy from the Sun. When you consider all these complexinteractions, you can see why it’s better to define climate asthe average weather conditions, their variability and causes, andinter-relationships of many individual systems within the globalEarth system. One example how such systems are inter-related isillustrated in Figure 12.What causes climate?Latitude is the primary factor that determines climate at agiven location. The amount of radiation received from the Sunand the prevailing circulation features depend on latitude. Otherfactors are location near high mountains or on the east or westsides of a continent and distance from major bodies of water.Causes of Mean Temperature The amount of solar radiationreceived and surface temperatures vary greatly from theequator to the poles. In the winter, the amount of solar radiationvaries, because of the low angle at which it strikes Earth. As aresult, temperatures decrease rapidly with increasing latitude.The high reflectance, or albedo, of snow and ice in high latitudesadds to this decrease. In summer, temperature decrease is lesspronounced as sunlight strikes at a higher angle and periods ofdaylight are longer. The temperature patterns over the UnitedStates illustrate this, as shown in Figure 12. The strong temperaturegradients in winter and spring help to create storms andsevere weather.-25-30-35510Figure 12 Lines drawn on aweather map that connect pointsof equal temperature are calledisotherms.Infer Why are warmer temperaturesshifted northward in July?January–20–15–10–50155 10201520 25 30July152025530 CHAPTER 17 Weather and Climate
Page 2 and 3: Start-Up ActivitiesAtmospheric Pres
Page 7 and 8: Figure 5 Earth’s continualcycling
Page 9 and 10: WeatherReading Guide■ Explain wha
Page 11 and 12: Figure 8 The symbols shownbelow eac
Page 13: Topic: Hurricane TrackingVisit gpes
Page 17 and 18: Ocean and Land Influence Oceans and
Page 19 and 20: ColdAridColdDry winterWarmAridWarmS
Page 21 and 22: Dinosaur ExtinctionThe impact of a
Page 23 and 24: Trace Gases Today’s atmosphere co
Page 25 and 26: Design Your OwnInvestigating Microc
Page 27 and 28: The Grapes of Wrathby John Steinbec
Page 29 and 30: iosphere p. 529continental climate
Page 31 and 32: Record your answers on the answer s

CHAPTER 17 Weather and Climate - Mr. Barrow's Science Center

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