Basic Meteorology

Dr. Kevin Kloesel

kkloesel@nwc.ou.edu

National Press Foundation

March 12, 2007
 Some analogies with the human body….

Blood pressure: hypertensive versus normal

On any given day…or two
 GOALS:

Earth’s rotation on its axis

Earth’s rotation (orbit) around the Sun

Patterns of Uneven Heating

Patterns of Pressure

Patterns of Weather!
Equatorial (Tropical) Regions

Polar Regions
The uneven heating should produce a global temperature
pattern that looks like this...

Does it?
Quantitative Temperature measurements look like this...

WHY?
And in July….
Mean annual temperature by latitude
(shading indicates variability)

Note! Be careful with graphs like this!

 Coriolis Force
• An apparent force due to the earth’s
rotation.
• Found in all moving reference systems.
• Occurs when reference systems interact.
• Ever tried to throw a ball on a rotating disk?
 The real world - Notice the global “connectivity”

Polar Stereographic Projection - Northern Hemisphere

Notice the “ridge” in the Central Plains and the “troughs” in the
east and west. The trough is where you observe low 500mb heights
(low thickness values and cold temps.). The ridge is where the
highest thickness values (and highest temps.) are observed.
TROUGH
‘TROF’ TROUGH

RIDGE
Anomalies are
departures from
normal. In this
case, the warm
colors indicate
above normal,
and the cold
colors indicate
below normal.
Notice the
alternating
pattern as you
move around the
pole.

These data are

from May 2001.
Air Mass Classification
A global composite water vapor image.
SO MUCH COMPLEXITY

SO MUCH TO LEARN

IT’S ALL ABOUT

RESOLUTION!
VOXELS mapped into PIXELS, at different resolution.
 Review!

The Earth is round, spins, orbits an energy source, and is tilted

on its axis at 23.5 degrees.

Therefore, we have cold (dense) air at the poles, and warm (less
dense) air in the tropics.

Cold air takes up less space (more dense) than warm air.

The Earth is constantly trying to reach an equilibrium (moving

warm air poleward and cold air equatorward).

Ever-changing ingredients stirred by troughs and ridges bring

the changing weather conditions that we observe on Earth.
Review cont!

Ridge-trough patterns exist around the Earth and are

connected in a circumpolar fashion in each hemisphere.

Therefore, pattern changes in one region can impact the

weather in others.

Ridge-trough patterns result in the migration of air masses

around the planet.

Air mass boundaries are called fronts, and tend to be the focus
for storms and precipitation.
 BREAK TIME!

Please do not hesitate to email

me with any questions

Kevin Kloesel
kkloesel@nwc.ou.edu