My Science School

No, it isn't the study of meteors, although it does involve the study of other sorts of objects that fall from the sky. Meteorology is, by definition, the study of Earth's atmosphere. The root of meteor is a variation on the Greek meteoron, which is a term dealing with any objects that originate in the sky.

Meteorology is an extremely interdisciplinary science, drawing on the laws of physics and chemistry (among others) to aid in our understanding of Earth's atmosphere, its processes, and its structure. It is a study that dates to ancient times, when ancient civilizations made observations and kept records of weather conditions, both for agricultural purposes and out of a general curiosity about the world around them.

Over the centuries, the atmosphere has been studied for a variety of reasons, including agricultural knowledge, military defense and planning, and developing better warnings for severe weather systems like tornadoes and hurricanes. Technological advances, such as the development of scientific computing and an increase in the total number of meteorological observations being taken daily across the globe, have allowed for better forecasts (or at least the meteorological community likes to think they are better forecasts) and a much better overall understanding of our atmosphere.

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Climatology is the study of the atmosphere and weather patterns over time. This field of science focuses on recording and analyzing weather patterns throughout the world and understanding the atmospheric conditions that cause them. It is sometimes confused with meteorology, which is the study of weather and weather forecasting. However, climatology is mainly focused on the natural and artificial forces that influence long-term weather patterns. Scientists who specialize in this field are called climatologists.

The first studies of climate can be traced back to ancient Greece, but climate science as it is now known did not emerge until the advent of the industrial age in the nineteenth century. The science of climatology grew as scientists became interested in understanding weather patterns. In recent times, climatologists have increasingly focused their research on the changes in Earth’s climate that have occurred since the industrial age. Earth has been growing warmer and warmer as human industry has expanded and released more carbon into the atmosphere. This effect, called global warming, is a particularly important object of study for climatologists. By studying global warming, climatologists can better understand and predict the long-term impact of human-caused climate change.

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When water falls from clouds, whether it is in the form of rain, snow, sleet or hail, it is called precipitation. When the Sun heats up water on Earth's surface, the water evaporates and travels into the atmosphere as water vapour. As the air rises and cools, this vapour becomes tiny drops of water again and falls to the ground as rain. If the temperature is below freezing, the droplets form tiny ice crystals that stick together to fall as snowflakes.

Precipitation is any liquid or frozen water that forms in the atmosphere and falls back to the Earth. It comes in many forms, like rain, sleet, and snow. Along with evaporation and condensation, precipitation is one of the three major parts of the global water cycle.

Precipitation forms in the clouds when water vapor condenses into bigger and bigger droplets of water. When the drops are heavy enough, they fall to the Earth. If a cloud is colder, like it would be at higher altitudes, the water droplets may freeze to form ice. These ice crystals then fall to the Earth as snow, hail, or rain, depending on the temperature within the cloud and at the Earth’s surface. Most rain actually begins as snow high in the clouds. As the snowflakes fall through warmer air, they become raindrops.

Particles of dust or smoke in the atmosphere are essential for precipitation. These particles, called “condensation nuclei,” provide a surface for water vapor to condense upon. This helps water droplets gather together and become large enough to fall to the Earth.

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The energy (heat) that the Earth receives from the Sun is a major cause of different weather Conditions. The Sun's energy in different parts of the Earth depends on where a place is in the world, the time of year and the time of day.

The energy that the Earth receives from the Sun is the basic cause of our changing weather. Solar heat warms the huge air masses that comprise large and small weather systems. The day-night and summer-winter cycles in the weather have obvious causes and effects.

The effects of currently observed changes in the Sun - small variations in light output, the occurrence of solar particle streams and magnetic fields are very small in the Earth's lower atmosphere or troposphere where our weather actually occurs. However, at higher altitudes, the atmosphere reacts strongly to changes in solar activity. The ozone layer, at an altitude of 25 kilometers (16 miles), and the ionosphere, which extends upwards in a series of layers above 60 kilometers (37 miles), are produced by solar ultraviolet light and X-rays which ionize the thin air at these altitudes. Although the visible light of the Sun is stable, large variations in X-ray and ultraviolet radiation accompany solar activity, and these variations on the Sun cause major changes in the ionosphere. Some meteorologists believe that the ionospheric changes in turn influence the weather in the lower atmosphere, but the physical mechanism by which this may occur has not been definitely identified. There is much research under way or possible relationships between solar activity and the weather.

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It is the uniform pattern in which air moves around our planet's atmosphere. It happens because the Sun heats Earth more at the equator than at the poles, and it is also affected by the spinning of the Earth.

Solar radiation that reaches the Earth passes through the atmosphere and is either absorbed or reflected by the atmosphere and Earth’s surface. Most of this absorption happens on Earth’s surfaces, which increases the temperature of both land and water. A small amount of heat in the first few centimeters of the atmosphere is transferred from the surface by conduction, the process of molecules colliding and transferring energy. Because air molecules are farther apart than they are in liquids or solids, they do not collide as frequently as in liquids and solids, and air is a poor conductor of heat. Most heat is transferred in the atmosphere by radiation and convection.

Sunlight absorbed by Earth’s surfaces is re-radiated as heat, warming the atmosphere from the bottom up. This heat is absorbed and re-radiated by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, resulting in the greenhouse effect. Warmed air expands and becomes less dense than cool air, so warmed air near the surface of the Earth rises up. Cooler air from above sinks and air moves horizontally to replace the rising warm air, which we experience as wind over the surface of the Earth. This transfer of heat because of density differences in air is called convection.

Patterns of air movement are further complicated because of Earth’s spin. Air moving from the equator towards the poles does not travel in a straight line, but is deflected because of the Coriolis effect, adding to the complexity of atmospheric circulation patterns.

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The weather depends on the way the air moves (wind), the moisture if carries (humidity), and its temperature (warmth). These are controlled by changes in air pressure. As air heats up, it becomes thinner and lighter. It rises upwards, creating an area of low pressure beneath it, which pulls in air from around to fill the empty space. As the air rises, it cools, forming clouds. But the cooler the air gets, the denser and heavier it becomes until eventually it starts to sink. The high pressure created pushes air down towards the ground, causing it to fan out and blow away everything in its way, stopping   the formation of clouds. This is why clear blue skies occur on high air-pressure days.

Weather comes in all different forms, and it changes by the day. It could be sunny one day and raining the next. It could even be sunny, rainy, cloudy, and stormy in one day.

Temperature

It’s getting hot out there. When you talk about the heat of the air outside on a summer day, this is the temperature. Measured with a thermometer in Fahrenheit, Celsius, or Kelvin, the temperature tells you how fast the air molecules and atoms are moving. Fast-moving molecules and atoms mean the temperature is high, while slow-moving molecules in the air create a low temperature.

Humidity

The moisture or dryness of the air is humidity. It’s an important weather aspect. Without it, humans wouldn’t be able to survive. However, the amount of water vapor, or humidity, in the air needs to have balance. Too little or too much water vapor in the air causes health issues and can be dangerous.

Precipitation

Precipitation is just a big word to describe how water falls to the ground. It can be rain, snow, sleet, ice, hail, or drizzle. The form these water or solid particles take depends on other weather factors. For example, if the temperature is cold, below 32 degrees, precipitation comes to the surface in the form of snow. If the weather is nice and warm, water comes down in the form of rain.

Wind

Air moves. All you must do is walk out your door to feel that. The movement of air is created by how the sun heats the Earth, and then convection tells you how air moves in predictable patterns. Therefore, meteorologists have some idea of how a storm will move or the type of weather you’ll have in a week.

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Meaning "the little girl" in Spanish, La Niña is a climatic pattern caused by a build-up of cooler-than-normal waters in the tropical Pacific, the area of the Pacific Ocean between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. The drastic drop in sea-surface temperature affects patterns of rainfall, atmospheric pressure and atmospheric circulation around the world.

La Niña is a climate pattern that describes the cooling of surface ocean waters along the tropical west coast of South America. La Nina is considered to be the counterpart to El Nino, which is characterized by unusually warm ocean temperatures in the equatorial region of the Pacific Ocean.

Together, La Niña and El Niño are the "cold" (La Niña) and "warm" (El Niño) phases of the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). ENSO is series of linked weather- and ocean-related phenomena. Besides unusually warm or cool sea-surface temperatures, ENSO is also characterized by changes in atmospheric pressure.

La Niña events sometimes follow El Niño events, which occur at irregular intervals of about two to seven years. The local effects on weather caused by La Niña ("little girl" in Spanish) are generally the opposite of those associated with El Niño ("little boy" in Spanish). For this reason, La Niña is also called anti-El Niño and El Viejo (the old man in Spanish).

Scientists use the Oceanic Nino Index to measure the deviations from normal sea-surface temperatures that El Niño and La Niña produce in the east-central Pacific Ocean. La Niña events are indicated by sea-surface temperature decreases of more than .5 degrees Celsius (.9 degrees Fahrenheit) for at least five successive three-month seasons.

La Niña is caused by a build-up of cooler-than-normal waters in the tropical Pacific, the area of the Pacific Ocean between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. Unusually strong, eastward-moving trade winds and ocean currents bring this cold water to the surface, a process known as upwelling.

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Yes, they are. Weather is the state of the atmosphere. Gravity, sunlight, the oceans and landscape influence air movement within the atmosphere, creating new cycles of sunshine, cloud, rain or snow. When looked at over many years, it is possible to see a pattern in these weather cycles, which occur again and again in an area, to define the climate of that area. Weather occurs at a particular time; climate is the average of weather conditions over many years.

More specifically, weather is the mix of events that happen each day in our atmosphere. Even though there’s only one atmosphere on Earth, the weather isn’t the same all around the world. Weather is different in different parts of the world and changes over minutes, hours, days, and weeks.

Most weather happens in the part of Earth’s atmosphere that is closest to the ground—called the troposphere. And, there are many different factors that can change the atmosphere in a certain area like air pressure, temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction, and lots of other things. Together, they determine what the weather is like at a given time and location.

Whereas weather refers to short-term changes in the atmosphere, climate describes what the weather is like over a long period of time in a specific area. Different regions can have different climates. To describe the climate of a place, we might say what the temperatures are like during different seasons, how windy it usually is, or how much rain or snow typically falls.

When scientists talk about climate, they're often looking at averages of precipitation, temperature, humidity, sunshine, wind, and other measures of weather that occur over a long period in a particular place. In some instances, they might look at these averages over 30 years. And, we refer to these three-decade averages of weather observations as Climate Normals.

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We often come across stories about how extreme weather events are affecting the planet's inhabitants. We keep learning about how they impact a specific ecosystem or a species in some corner of the world and in ways nobody can foresee. Recently in the news for this is the iguana.

This January, South Florida experienced unusually cold temperatures. At one point, it even reached -3 degrees Celsius, making it among the lowest since 2010. Days before the region plunged into cold weather, the National Weather Service warned residents about the impending weather change. It also alerted them to look out for iguanas falling off trees in the area. What do low temperatures have to do with falling iguanas?

As cold-blooded reptiles, iguanas rely on the sun to keep them warm and their body functioning properly. But neither can happen when snow falls or the temperature drops really low, say below 4 degrees Celsius. When it becomes unbearably cold for these reptiles, they climb trees hoping to stay safe up there till it gets warmer. But what happens is, without the warmth, they cannot move because their body does not function well. So, they enter a state of sleep called torpor, which is almost like a coma. And that's when they lose their grip and fall off the trees. Once temperatures go up (above 10 degrees Celsius), these creatures thaw out and get back to the life that once was.

This is not the first time this phenomenon has occurred - it was reported in 2018 and 2020 too. But when low temperatures continue for a longer period of time, it may prove to be fatal for these creatures.

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