EOSC 112 Lecture 2: AtmosphericCirc2_Fall2014_post(1)

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

Document Summary

Last class, we mostly discussed a hypothetical water-covered earth with no continents. The presence of continents changes atmospheric circulation, ocean circulation, and, as we"ll see in the next class, has a large influence on regional climate. Today, we"ll discuss issues of continental placement on a large global scale, as background for later specifics like monsoon circulation. Aim to be able to explain, from scratch, how the geostrophic balance works. We"re going to use the geostrophic balance in multiple situations. Once you get it, you"ll be able to reconstruct air and water movements without having to memorize wind and current directions! Storm behaviour: every year, thousands of people lose their lives and millions of people lose their homes and livelihoods due to damage from large storms. The wind patterns in these storms follow some basic principles, based on atmospheric pressure differences and coriolis.