WES D

When we did the WES D project had some prior knowledge about this subject although i did learn a substantial amount of stuff in the duration of the project. In the WES D project we learned about how the winds and the Coriolis effect. The Coriolis effect which is the unequal heating and cooling of the atmosphere by the underlying ocean and land surfaces produces atmosphere circulation. This has to do with my project topic because my topic is La Nina mainly about the winds coming from the pacific oceans and the cool air coming from the west.

Activity c

At the begging In the activity Wes c we learned about storms.I didnt know much about storms other than that they were clouds and rain that usually had thunder and lightning but i found out that they were much more than that.There are many more components to storms than that. We learned about how the dew point and humidity are related. They are related because Relative humidity is defined as the amount of water vapor in a sample of air compared to the maximum amount of water vapor the air can hold at any specific temperature in a form of 0 to 100%.(1) and dew point is the temperature to which a given parcel of air must be cooled, at constant barometric pressure, for water vapor to condense into water.(2) This is related to El Nina because El Nina brings cold air winds in from the ocean and dew point and humidity is water vapors and cool air temperatures.

(1)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humidity

(2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dew_point

La Nina ~ Climate issue research

When i started i didn't know much about the topic but it sounded interesting then after research i found that la Nina is defined as cooler than normal sea-surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific ocean that impact global weather patterns.(1) La Nina comes every few years and can stay for up to two years but is usually only normal for La Nina to stay for 9-12 months. It is an extreme phases of a naturally occurring climate cycle. (1) La nina is caused by a buildup of un normally cold subsurface waters in the tropical Pacific. At higher latitudes, El Niño and La Niña are among a number of factors that influence climate.(2) La Niña means "The Little Girl." La Niña is sometimes called El Viejo (Old Man), anti-El Niño, or simply "a cold event" or "a cold episode".(3) La nina is mostly over Indonesia and northern Australia and brings higher than normal pressure over the eastern tropical Pacific. More wet conditions are know to be over Africa and northern Brazil, during the northern winter season. Also there are drier than normal condition during the cold episodes.(4) La Nina is thought to occur because of very strong trade winds that as pressure rises in the east, there is typically an accompanying decrease in the west. The studies of La nina and el nino also led to the realization that Asian monsoon seasons under certain barometric conditions were often linked to drought in Australia, Indonesia, India and parts of Africa, and to mild winters in western Canada.
As a rule, the effects of La Niña are more direct and dramatic during the Northern Hemisphere winter. La Niñas may affect weather patterns in certain parts of the world, causing abnormally high rainfall in southeast Asia and dry conditions in the desert areas of South America. Some impacts of previous La Niñas include:

∑ Abnormally heavy monsoons on the Indian subcontinent.
∑ * In the United States, colder and snowier winter in the northern states west of the Great Lakes. Drier than normal winter in the Southeast. Warmer and drier winters in the Southwest. Enhanced hurricane activity around the mid-Atlantic states.
* Torrential rains leading to floods in Southeast Asia.
* Wet weather in eastern Australia.
* Cool and wet winter in southeastern Africa
(5)




All images from :
http://images.google.com/images?gbv=2&hl=en&q=Global+effects+of+La+nina&btnG=Search+Images





(1)
http://www.elnino.noaa.gov/lanina_new_faq.html

(2)
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tao/elnino/la-nina-story.html

(3)
http://www.publicaffairs.noaa.gov/lanina.html

(4)
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/cold_impacts.shtml

(5)
http://www.msc-smc.ec.gc.ca/education/lanina/global/index_e.cfm

Activity 4

When we started activiety four i was thinking that the bottle with the black dirt and no clouds would get warmer faster under the light again because black gets hot faster. There were four options thought they were white sand with clouds and white sand withought clouds then black dirt with clouds and black dirt without clouds. In the results yeblack dirt with no clouds did actually heat up faster then the rest. The activity connects to my topic because it can bring in colder weather form its ocean currents.

Why is nature Playing April fools?

Nature is playing April fools because La Nina is bringing cold front's in from the ocean. The Strong polar circulation effects our climate because they bring in the warm moist air that can counter effect the La Nina 's cold air and give us a whole bunch if different weather. For example one it is warm enough to to wear a t-shirt the next day it was starting to snow. Although when the polar ice caps hit in certain places they cool considerable amounts considerably fast. This activity connnected to my topic because my topic was La Nina which like i said brings in the cold air from the ocean currents to help the climate cool down.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_circulation#Polar_cell