CK12 Earth Science

Figure 15.13: An image of a dog taken by an infrared sensor. The image shows the different amounts of heat radiating from the do ...

different seasons. But what causes the seasons? The Earth revolves around the Sun once each year and spins on its axis of rotati ...

Figure 15.16: Where sunlight reaches on spring equinox, summer solstice, vernal equinox, and winter solstice. The time is 9:00 p ...

Heat Transfer in the Atmosphere Heat can move in three different ways. We’ve already examined radiation, in which electro- magne ...

and night in the summer, it is at a very low angle in the sky. This means that not much solar radiation reaches the ground near ...

Figure 15.18: The Earth’s heat budget, showing the amount of energy coming into and going out of the Earth system and the import ...

Table 15.2: (continued) Greenhouse Gas Where It Comes From Methane Decompositionofplantmaterialundersome conditions, biochemical ...

Why is carbon dioxide the most important greenhouse gas? How does the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere affect the a ...

Points to Consider How does the difference in solar radiation that reaches the lower and upper latitudes explain the way the at ...

Figure 15.19: Papers being held up by rising air currents above a furnace demonstrate the important principle that warm air rise ...

At the top of the troposphere, the air travels horizontally from a high pressure zone to a low pressure zone. Since it is at the ...

and sink, which creates a high pressure cell. Meanwhile, the warmer ocean warms the air above it and creates a low pressure cell ...

Monsoon Winds Monsoon winds are larger scale versions of land and sea breezes; they blow from the sea onto the land in summer an ...

air up from the valley. This uphill airflow is called avalley breeze. When the Sun goes down, the mountain slopes cool more quic ...

Figure 15.22: Air cools and loses moisture as it rises over a mountain. It descends on the leeward side and warms by compression ...

Figure15.23: SantaAnawindsblowdustandsmokewestwardoverthePacificfromSouthern California. ( 3 ) Figure 15.24: The Harris Fire bur ...

High summer temperatures on the desert create high winds, which are often associated with monsoonstorms. Ahaboobformsinthedowndr ...

Hemisphere and to the left in the Southern Hemisphere. The objects themselves are actually moving straight, but the Earth is rot ...

Figure15.26: Theatmosphericcirculationcells,showingdirectionofwindsatEarth’ssurface. ( 8 ) Figure 15.27: The major wind belts an ...

Let’s look at the global wind belts at the Earth’s surface in the Northern Hemisphere. In the Hadley cell, air moves north to so ...