EESB18H3 Lecture Notes - Carbonate Rock, Trade Winds, Oceanic Basin
Document Summary
California (fire and flood); more droughts and drier summers. Maldives (sea level rise); islands in the south pacific. Changes in our economy due to the increase in natural disasters. Changing hazard cycles and trends; ex// natural and manmade climate change. Solar energy is the most important factor controlling the earth"s energy. Near the equator, the earth receives the sun"s rays vertically making the earth warmer. Near the poles, the earth receives the sun"s rays in an oblique angle, making the earth cooler in those regions. The warm air near the equator rises, it actually cools down since it expands = adiabatic cooling = change in gas by changing its pressure, causing it to expand; this is why we have lush-full rainforests. The 30 degrees latitude is also known as horse latitude because there weren"t much winds and sailors would throw horses out of their boats to be able to sail or something like that.