Orographic Precipitation
The key components of the earth’s climate system are atmosphere, water, ice, land surfaces and vegetation. Forcing is the factors that drive or cause change to the climate system. The four mentioned in the text are as follows: changes in plate tectonics, changes in the Earth’s orbit, change in the sun’s strength and anthropologic changes. These forces are all external as they are outside of the system and affect the land surfaces, ocean, ice, vegetation and atmosphere producing a response or change in the internal components. Tectonic process includes the movement f the continents, the uplift of mountain ranges, the opening and closing of ocean basins. The variation of the Earth’s orbit around the sun alters the amount of solar radiation. Changes in the strength of the sun also affect the amount of solar radiation hitting the earth. Also these external forces occur on different time scales ranging from decades to millions of years. Tectonic plate movement moves very slowly over a period of a million of years. Earth’s orbit changes over thousands of years and the strength of the sun can change levels in decades, centuries, or millenias. Therefore the time scale varies in relation to the effect and we most likely
The West Coast climate region experiences the marine influence of the Pacific Ocean, and, as a result, enjoys moderate temperatures (warm summers and cool winters). There are seasonal variations in precipitation, with winter being the wettest season. Pacific air masses bring mild, wet weather to British Columbia’s coast for most of the year. These air masses are much stronger in the winter so BC experiences a winter maximum for precipitation compared to a relatively dry summer. Orographic precipitation is responsible for British Columbia holding the areas with the highest and lowest annual precipitation (see Appendix 1). Pacific air masses must rise above the Coast Range mountains. The climate is temperate, dominated by constant flows of moist Pacific air masses. The result is wet, cloudy weather. The Mountain climate region has lower temperatures because of the high altitude of the Rocky Mountains, ranging from 3000 to 4000 metres. Precipitation varies here with westward and leeward locations. The climate becomes drier as distance from the Pacific Ocean increases, and cooler as elevation or latitude increases. The vegetation is desert-like grassland. Along the western slopes of the Coast Mountains, rainfall exceeds 100cm per year, while in Southern Alberta and Saskatchewan annual precipitation is less than 30cm. This too is due to orographic rainfall along the Coast Range mountains and the gradual loss of moisture in the Pacific air masses as they move inland (Bone, 2002, 53, 64-71). The response time of the climate system is a measure of the time it takes the climate system to react fully to some imposed change in the external forcing. Each part of the climate system has its own characteristic response time ranging from hours or days up to thousands or even tens of thousands of years. The at
Some topics in this essay:
,
Earth Sun,
Feedback Earth’s,
Western Cordillera,
Coast Range,
Pacific Ocean,
Pacific Ocean’s,
Rocky Mountains,
British Columbia’s,
British Columbia,
climate system,
air masses,
ruddiman 2001,
pacific air masses,
pacific air,
coast range mountains,
earth’s orbit,
climate change,
response ranging,
range mountains,
climate region,
coast range,
earth’s climate system,
example daily heating,
ranging weeks example,
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Approximate Word count = 1230
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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