GEOL 106 Lecture 10: Climate Change
7 Dec 2015
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Document Summary
Short-term changes you observe in temp, clouds precipitations, humidity, etc. Changes very slowly from 10"s to 1000"s of years: a minimum description of climate includes monthly values of temp and precipitation averaged over a few decades. Low pressure system: air moving up. High pressure just above: mountain effect. Occurs the same but on east coast of sa: intertropical convergence zone (itcz) Shown by bands or rain near equator. Two bands in west pas due to north-south migration of itcz. 3 peaked profile: continentality, biggest peak at itcz, two belts of desert because of dry air, belts of mid-latitude storms descending. Even though there are all these interferences due to mountains continents and ocean currents, you still see the latitudal atmospheric circulation trends. Oceans store heat effectively but land does not. Water have very high heat capacity and liquid water is constantly being stirred so you have to heat 10s to 100s of m.
