- "Atmospheric circulation is the large-scale movement of air and together with ocean circulation is the means by which thermal energy is redistributed on the surface of the Earth."
The study of the motions of the Earth's atmosphere, including atmospheric circulation, wind patterns, and heat transfer.
Introduction to Meteorology: Basic concepts and terminology used in meteorology.
Atmosphere Composition and Structure: Composition of gases, layers of the atmosphere, and vertical profiles of temperature and pressure.
Solar Radiation and Energy Budget: The role of the sun in driving atmospheric processes and the global energy balance.
Atmospheric Thermodynamics: The study of the relationships between temperature, pressure, and density of the atmosphere.
Atmospheric Radiation: The study of the transfer of energy through electromagnetic waves and its effects on the atmosphere.
Clouds and Precipitation: The formation and types of clouds, the processes that lead to precipitation, and cloud-seeding.
Atmospheric Dynamics: The study of air movement in the atmosphere, including winds, pressure systems, and atmospheric circulation.
Atmospheric Circulation: The large-scale patterns of air movement, including the Hadley, Ferrel, and Polar cells.
Atmospheric Waves: The study of atmospheric oscillations and how they propagate through the atmosphere.
Tropical Meteorology: The study of atmospheric processes in the tropics, including tropical cyclones and monsoons.
Synoptic Meteorology: The study of atmospheric phenomena on a regional scale, including fronts, weather systems, and weather forecasting.
Climate Dynamics: The study of long-term atmospheric patterns and changes, including climate variability and climate change.
Atmospheric Chemistry: The study of the chemistry of the atmosphere, including air pollution, ozone depletion, and global warming.
Remote Sensing: The use of satellites, radar, and other instruments to measure atmospheric variables and phenomena.
Weather Forecasting: The use of current atmospheric data and models to predict future weather conditions.
Thermodynamics: Deals with the study of heat and its transfer in the atmosphere, and how it influences atmospheric conditions such as temperature, pressure, and density.
Fluid Dynamics: Examines the movement of fluids and how it applies to the atmosphere.
Boundary Layer Meteorology: Focuses on the lower few hundred meters of the atmosphere immediately adjacent to the surface and how it interacts with the surface.
Atmospheric Waves: Examines the propagation and behavior of various atmospheric waves, such as gravity waves, Rossby waves, and Kelvin waves.
Cloud Dynamics: Deals with the formation, evolution, and dissipation of clouds and how they are connected to larger-scale atmospheric processes.
Atmospheric Chemistry: Studies the chemical composition of the atmosphere and how it affects weather, climate, and air quality.
Atmospheric Physics: Examines the physical properties of the atmosphere, including its electrical and magnetic properties.
Climate Dynamics: Deals with long-term changes in the Earth's climate, including interactions between the atmosphere, oceans, and land surfaces.
Mesoscale Meteorology: Focuses on atmospheric phenomena that occur on spatial scales of a few kilometers to a few hundred kilometers.
Numerical Weather Prediction: Involves using computer models to simulate and forecast weather and atmospheric processes.
- "The Earth's atmospheric circulation varies from year to year, but the large-scale structure of its circulation remains fairly constant."
- "The smaller-scale weather systems – mid-latitude depressions, or tropical convective cells – occur chaotically."
- "Long-range weather predictions of those cannot be made beyond ten days in practice, or a month in theory."
- "The Earth's weather is a consequence of its illumination by the Sun and the laws of thermodynamics."
- "The atmospheric circulation can be viewed as a heat engine driven by the Sun's energy and whose energy sink, ultimately, is the blackness of space."
- "The work produced by that engine causes the motion of the masses of air and in that process it redistributes the energy absorbed by the Earth's surface near the tropics to the latitudes nearer the poles, and thence to space."
- "The large-scale atmospheric circulation 'cells' shift polewards in warmer periods (for example, interglacials compared to glacials)."
- "...fundamentally, [atmospheric circulation] is a property of the Earth's size, rotation rate, heating and atmospheric depth, all of which change little."
- "Over very long time periods (hundreds of millions of years), a tectonic uplift can significantly alter their major elements, such as the jet stream, and plate tectonics may shift ocean currents."
- "During the extremely hot climates of the Mesozoic, a third desert belt may have existed at the Equator." Note: Due to the limitations of the model, the text produced might not always provide answers that match the style or content of the original paragraph.