Weather: Running Around in Circles
Issue date: 2/3/10 Section: Features
By Alaina Grantham
Rotunda Reporter
Weather is a driving force in our lives, affecting everything from the mundane to the extreme. In the morning it dictates what we decide to wear and in the evening it dictates our dinner plans. Weathermen, or meteorologists, have built careers around studying weather patterns, trying to understand the how's and why's of weather on our planet earth.
The last 100 years have provided uncontrolled growth in the science of meteorology, or weather predicting. With the aid of satellites and computers meteorologists have been able to better understand weather patterns and can therefore predict the weather more accurately.
However, the more meteorologists learn about weather patterns the more they realize how much is left to learn. There are many, many, many, many factors that contribute to what type of weather occurs and when. Barometric pressure, temperature, time of year, moisture and local environment only begin to scratch the surface of things that contribute to the weather.
Scientists have come to understand that one of the major contributors to weather patterns on our planet is something called a convection current. A convection current is a circular air current caused by warm moist air rising after absorbing heat.
Since the sunlight hits our planet at different angles, the planet's surface is heated unevenly, which causes minor wind and weather patterns that interact with convection currents. This uneven heating is due to the fact that only a small percentage of the sun's light and energy passes into the earth's atmosphere.
The atmosphere will actually deflect most of the light and energy back into space, especially if the light hits the atmosphere at an angle. Think of it like skipping stones, when you throw a stone it has to hit the water at the right angel to skip. A stone that skips represents energy that is bounced back into space, while any stone that sinks represents energy absorbed by our atmosphere and planet.
Rotunda Reporter
Weather is a driving force in our lives, affecting everything from the mundane to the extreme. In the morning it dictates what we decide to wear and in the evening it dictates our dinner plans. Weathermen, or meteorologists, have built careers around studying weather patterns, trying to understand the how's and why's of weather on our planet earth.
The last 100 years have provided uncontrolled growth in the science of meteorology, or weather predicting. With the aid of satellites and computers meteorologists have been able to better understand weather patterns and can therefore predict the weather more accurately.
However, the more meteorologists learn about weather patterns the more they realize how much is left to learn. There are many, many, many, many factors that contribute to what type of weather occurs and when. Barometric pressure, temperature, time of year, moisture and local environment only begin to scratch the surface of things that contribute to the weather.
Scientists have come to understand that one of the major contributors to weather patterns on our planet is something called a convection current. A convection current is a circular air current caused by warm moist air rising after absorbing heat.
Since the sunlight hits our planet at different angles, the planet's surface is heated unevenly, which causes minor wind and weather patterns that interact with convection currents. This uneven heating is due to the fact that only a small percentage of the sun's light and energy passes into the earth's atmosphere.
The atmosphere will actually deflect most of the light and energy back into space, especially if the light hits the atmosphere at an angle. Think of it like skipping stones, when you throw a stone it has to hit the water at the right angel to skip. A stone that skips represents energy that is bounced back into space, while any stone that sinks represents energy absorbed by our atmosphere and planet.
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