EAR 203
Name: ____________________________
Date: _________________________
Block: _____
SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY
LAB 5D- ATMOSPHERIC AND OCEANIC CIRCULATION
OBJECTIVE
The main goal of this lab is to reinforce the concepts learned about atmospheric and oceanic circulation, and to explain how these two processes are strongly inter-dependent and strongly influence each other.
PROCEDURE
You will use the website http://www.mpcfaculty.net/alfred_hochstaedter/Earth%20Science/circlab.htm to access the color images for this lab, since color makes the information much easier to see. All images on the websites are thumbnails, so that clicking on them will bring you to larger versions. The diagrams are reproduced here on these pages so that you can use them to write notes and remember the pertinent points of this lab.
Atmospheric Circulation
The diagrams to the left shows average sea surface temperatures (SST) for August and January. The diagrams are also contoured with lines of equal temperature.
1. At what northern latitude is the 20C contour in August?
2. At what northern latitude is the 20C contour in January?
3. Describe how ocean temperature changes with the seasons?
4. How does the high heat capacity of water influence this seasonal temperature change?
See current SSTs at: http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/data/sst/latest_sst.gif
Animations of recent SST anomalies are at:
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/map/clim/sst_olr/sst_anim.shtml
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc2wYXK3qRk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DAB6NCMWgM
The diagrams to the left are data from the NOAA satellite TIROS, which measures long-wave radiation emitted from the Earth’s surface and atmosphere. This kind of radiation is related to the surface temperatures on Earth. Green and blue colors represent temperatures below 0C. The darkest purple represents temperatures near -30C. The top diagram is for August and the bottom diagram is for January.
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