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Category Archives: Phenomena
What are gravity waves?
Picture a rock thrown into a lake on a calm day. That is an excellent example of what a gravity wave looks like.
Ripples migrate from where the rock hits the water, causing an up and down motion along the water’s surface. As we get farther away from the point where the rock hit the water, the waves dampen, becoming less defined. Continue reading
What is happening with ocean temperatures?
Scientists record global ocean temperatures using satellite observations. Since mid-March, the global average sea surface temperature has been more than 70 degrees, a record high temperature. This indicates rapid warming, which is associated with global warming and ocean circulations.
El Niño and La Niña are climate patterns in the Pacific Ocean. Normally, the trade winds blow west along the equator, moving warm water from South America toward Asia. To replace that warm water, cold water rises from the ocean depths — a process called upwelling. That means cold water rises to the surface near South America. Continue reading
What is a stratospheric sudden warming?
The region of the atmosphere closest to Earth, where the temperature decreases as you go up, is called the troposphere. The top ranges from about 6 miles over the cold poles to 10 miles over the tropics. Above the tropopause … Continue reading
Are there rivers in the atmosphere?
The term “atmospheric river” has been in the news recently due to the flooding along the West Coast.
An atmospheric river is a narrow band of concentrated moisture in the atmosphere. It is a narrow moisture plume that is a few thousand miles long and only about 250 to 375 miles wide. The term was coined in the early 1990s. Continue reading
Category: Meteorology, Phenomena, Severe Weather
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How remarkable was the recent winter storm?
The recent winter storm that affected large portions of the United States just days before the Christmas holiday was remarkable in a number of dimensions.
It was an example of a “bomb cyclone” which simply means that the rate at which its central pressure dropped — about 2.5% in a single day — was extremely unusual. Even though a 2.5% change in central pressure does not sound like very much, it was responsible for revving up the extreme winds that brought wind chills into the minus 30s and ground blizzard conditions to a large portion of the Great Lakes states on Dec. 23. Continue reading
Category: Meteorology, Phenomena, Seasons, Severe Weather
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