EOSC 112 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Intertropical Convergence Zone, Subtropics, Indian Ocean

• School: UBC
• Department: Earth and Ocean Sciences
• Course: EOSC 112
• Professor: Roger Francois

Document Summary

Today we"ll focus on a particular kind of atmospheric circulation, i. e. the temporal changes in wind direction between land and sea. We"ll describe: changes in the prevailing direction of winds between land and sea on daily time scale. Changers in wind direction between oceans and continents (i. e. affecting larger surface areas) on seasonal timescales, generating what we call the monsoons, which are intimately linked to regional climate at low latitudes. We will also look at the variability in seasonal monsoons in relation to el nino/la. Nina cycles (we will describe in detail el nino a little later) And we will briefly discuss how longer term variations (centuries to millennia) in monsoons may have affected civilization in some parts of the world. Last, we"ll look at the global distribution of annual precipitation on continents and how the patterns fit the general atmospheric circulation patterns we"ve discussed earlier.