Category Environtal Studies

What is Precipitation?

When water falls from clouds, whether it is in the form of rain, snow, sleet or hail, it is called precipitation. When the Sun heats up water on Earth’s surface, the water evaporates and travels into the atmosphere as water vapour. As the air rises and cools, this vapour becomes tiny drops of water again and falls to the ground as rain. If the temperature is below freezing, the droplets form tiny ice crystals that stick together to fall as snowflakes.

Precipitation is any liquid or frozen water that forms in the atmosphere and falls back to the Earth. It comes in many forms, like rain, sleet, and snow. Along with evaporation and condensation, precipitation is one of the three major parts of the global water cycle.

Precipitation forms in the clouds when water vapor condenses into bigger and bigger droplets of water. When the drops are heavy enough, they fall to the Earth. If a cloud is colder, like it would be at higher altitudes, the water droplets may freeze to form ice. These ice crystals then fall to the Earth as snow, hail, or rain, depending on the temperature within the cloud and at the Earth’s surface. Most rain actually begins as snow high in the clouds. As the snowflakes fall through warmer air, they become raindrops.

Particles of dust or smoke in the atmosphere are essential for precipitation. These particles, called “condensation nuclei,” provide a surface for water vapor to condense upon. This helps water droplets gather together and become large enough to fall to the Earth.

Credit: National Geographic Society

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What is Atmospheric circulation?

It is the uniform pattern in which air moves around our planet’s atmosphere. It happens because the Sun heats Earth more at the equator than at the poles, and it is also affected by the spinning of the Earth.

Solar radiation that reaches the Earth passes through the atmosphere and is either absorbed or reflected by the atmosphere and Earth’s surface. Most of this absorption happens on Earth’s surfaces, which increases the temperature of both land and water. A small amount of heat in the first few centimeters of the atmosphere is transferred from the surface by conduction, the process of molecules colliding and transferring energy. Because air molecules are farther apart than they are in liquids or solids, they do not collide as frequently as in liquids and solids, and air is a poor conductor of heat. Most heat is transferred in the atmosphere by radiation and convection.

Sunlight absorbed by Earth’s surfaces is re-radiated as heat, warming the atmosphere from the bottom up. This heat is absorbed and re-radiated by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, resulting in the greenhouse effect. Warmed air expands and becomes less dense than cool air, so warmed air near the surface of the Earth rises up. Cooler air from above sinks and air moves horizontally to replace the rising warm air, which we experience as wind over the surface of the Earth. This transfer of heat because of density differences in air is called convection.

Patterns of air movement are further complicated because of Earth’s spin. Air moving from the equator towards the poles does not travel in a straight line, but is deflected because of the Coriolis effect, adding to the complexity of atmospheric circulation patterns.

Credit: Understanding Global change

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What creates different weather conditions?

The weather depends on the way the air moves (wind), the moisture if carries (humidity), and its temperature (warmth). These are controlled by changes in air pressure. As air heats up, it becomes thinner and lighter. It rises upwards, creating an area of low pressure beneath it, which pulls in air from around to fill the empty space. As the air rises, it cools, forming clouds. But the cooler the air gets, the denser and heavier it becomes until eventually it starts to sink. The high pressure created pushes air down towards the ground, causing it to fan out and blow away everything in its way, stopping   the formation of clouds. This is why clear blue skies occur on high air-pressure days.

Weather comes in all different forms, and it changes by the day. It could be sunny one day and raining the next. It could even be sunny, rainy, cloudy, and stormy in one day.

Temperature

It’s getting hot out there. When you talk about the heat of the air outside on a summer day, this is the temperature. Measured with a thermometer in Fahrenheit, Celsius, or Kelvin, the temperature tells you how fast the air molecules and atoms are moving. Fast-moving molecules and atoms mean the temperature is high, while slow-moving molecules in the air create a low temperature.

Humidity

The moisture or dryness of the air is humidity. It’s an important weather aspect. Without it, humans wouldn’t be able to survive. However, the amount of water vapor, or humidity, in the air needs to have balance. Too little or too much water vapor in the air causes health issues and can be dangerous.

Precipitation

Precipitation is just a big word to describe how water falls to the ground. It can be rain, snow, sleet, ice, hail, or drizzle. The form these water or solid particles take depends on other weather factors. For example, if the temperature is cold, below 32 degrees, precipitation comes to the surface in the form of snow. If the weather is nice and warm, water comes down in the form of rain.

Wind

Air moves. All you must do is walk out your door to feel that. The movement of air is created by how the sun heats the Earth, and then convection tells you how air moves in predictable patterns. Therefore, meteorologists have some idea of how a storm will move or the type of weather you’ll have in a week.

Credit: Your Dictionary

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Are weather and climate different?

Yes, they are. Weather is the state of the atmosphere. Gravity, sunlight, the oceans and landscape influence air movement within the atmosphere, creating new cycles of sunshine, cloud, rain or snow. When looked at over many years, it is possible to see a pattern in these weather cycles, which occur again and again in an area, to define the climate of that area. Weather occurs at a particular time; climate is the average of weather conditions over many years.

More specifically, weather is the mix of events that happen each day in our atmosphere. Even though there’s only one atmosphere on Earth, the weather isn’t the same all around the world. Weather is different in different parts of the world and changes over minutes, hours, days, and weeks.

Most weather happens in the part of Earth’s atmosphere that is closest to the ground—called the troposphere. And, there are many different factors that can change the atmosphere in a certain area like air pressure, temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction, and lots of other things. Together, they determine what the weather is like at a given time and location.

Whereas weather refers to short-term changes in the atmosphere, climate describes what the weather is like over a long period of time in a specific area. Different regions can have different climates. To describe the climate of a place, we might say what the temperatures are like during different seasons, how windy it usually is, or how much rain or snow typically falls.

When scientists talk about climate, they’re often looking at averages of precipitation, temperature, humidity, sunshine, wind, and other measures of weather that occur over a long period in a particular place. In some instances, they might look at these averages over 30 years. And, we refer to these three-decade averages of weather observations as Climate Normals.

Credit: NOAA

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What is wind?

Wind is moving air, ranging from a light, gentle breeze to a very strong and fast-moving storm capable of great destruction. Air moves because the Sun warms some places more than the others, creating differences in air pressure, which causes the air to be pushed around in the form of air currents.

Differences in atmospheric pressure generate winds. At the Equator, the sun warms the water and land more than it does the rest of the globe. Warm equatorial air rises higher into the atmosphere and migrates toward the poles. This is a low-pressure system. At the same time, cooler, denser air moves over Earth’s surface toward the Equator to replace the heated air. This is a high-pressure system. Winds generally blow from high-pressure areas to low-pressure areas.Wind is the movement of air caused by the uneven heating of the Earth by the sun. It does not have much substance—you cannot see it or hold it—but you can feel its force. It can dry your clothes in summer and chill you to the bone in winter. It is strong enough to carry sailing ships across the ocean and rip huge trees from the ground. It is the great equalizer of the atmosphere, transporting heat, moisture, pollutants, and dust great distances around the globe. Landforms, processes, and impacts of wind are called Aeolian landforms, processes, and impacts.

The boundary between these two areas is called a front. The complex relationships between fronts cause different types of wind and weather patterns.

Credit: National Geographic Society

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WHICH COUNTRY IS THE BEST AT RECYCLING?

Germany is the recycling champion of the world. 70% of all waste produced is recycled, the most in the world. Manufacturers and retailers have to pay for a Green Dot on products: the more packaging there is, the higher the fee. This has led to less paper, thinner glass and less metal being used, creating less waste to be recycled. The result: 1 million tons less waste than normal every year.

Globally, about 1.3 billion tons of trash is generated per year. In Europe, the amount of plastic waste has increased 13% in the last decade and in Germany alone, 3 million tons of plastic packaging waste is produced annually; according to official statistics, 48.8% of this plastic waste is recycled.

A lot of waste that ends up in sorting facilities is incorrectly collected; in Germany, up to 50% of general rubbish ends up in bins designated for plastic, including waste that needs to be separated from plastics. Automated facilities are also unable to sort food containers made from different types of plastics, meaning that a lot of mixed plastic packaging ends up being discarded. This waste then ends up in landfills or incineration sites, yet it is counted as being recycled.

Meanwhile, the Bundestag and Bundesrat- Germany’s lower and upper houses of parliament- passed legislation in early July that would phase out coal use in the country by 2038 as part of a road map to reduce carbon emissions, after agreeing on the plan in January. The new plan also legislates the closure of eight brown-coal operations by 2022 as the number of jobs in renewable energy increases. 

If the planet continues producing and discarding as much plastic as it does now, by 2050, the plastic industry would represent 20% of all crude oil production, consuming 15% of the global annual carbon budget. Germany banning single-use plastic is a small step in reducing our reliance on fossil fuel, but an important one nonetheless. 

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