1. Weather Temperature Controls May 6, 2008

2. Temperature Temperature is the measure of the average kinetic energy of the particles of an object. Think of a thermometer as a speedometer! A temperature control is any factor that causes temperature to vary from place to place and from time to time. What do you think are some temperature controls?

3. Temperature Controls Factors that exert a strong influence on temperature include latitude, heating of land and water, altitude, geographic position, cloud cover, and ocean currents.

4. Latitude Because the axis remains pointed toward the North Star as Earth moves around the sun, the position of Earth’s axis to the suns rays is constantly changing. Flashlight Demonstration

5. Heating of Land and Water Land heats more rapidly and to higher temperatures than water. Land also cools more rapidly and to lower temperatures than water. How can this difference affect the temperature? (Remember the heat source for the troposphere!)

6. Compare Using a Graph What does the left axis indicate? What does the right axis indicate? What does the bottom axis indicate? What do the curves indicate about the climates of each city?

7. Geographic Position The geographic position can greatly influence temperatures experienced at a specific location. Windward vs. Leeward Mountain barriers

8. Altitude These two cities have different altitudes. Which one has a higher altitude? What is the relationship between altitude and temperature?

9. Cloud Cover and Albedo Albedo is the fraction of total radiation that is reflected by any surface. Many clouds have a high albedo, and therefore reflect a significant portion of the sunlight that strikes them back to space. At night, clouds have the opposite effect, and reflect outgoing radiation emitted by Earth back to Earth.

10. Cloud Cover and Albedo Illustrated

11. Isotherms Isotherms are lines that connect points that have the same temperature.

12. Assignment Read pg. 488-493 Complete 17.3 ws