We now know that a Polar front is the boundary which separates warm tropical air from the colder air near the pole. All depressions form on this Polar front, because …
Before you start the course, we’d like you to have a go at trying to predict the weather in Reading, in our game hosted on the Royal Meteorological Society website. …
Of all the weather systems on Earth, tropical cyclones produce some of the most intense and damaging weather. Known as Hurricanes in the Atlantic, Typhoons in the Pacific and Cyclones …
The word ‘monsoon’ tends to be used very loosely to describe any particularly prolonged spell of wet weather. In fact the word has a very specific meteorological meaning. It is …
Every few years a very noticeable change comes about in the temperature of the equatorial Pacific Ocean. The eastern side, which is usually the coolest part, warms up considerably, particularly …
Earlier this week we looked at the radiation budget of the Earth, that is the difference between the incoming energy from the Sun and the outgoing infra-red energy lost to …
Congratulations on completing the course! Hopefully, by the end of this week you should feel that you are happier: explaining some of the processes which transfer energy through the Earth …
In this video Sylvia demonstrates the solutions to this Week’s practical activity; the isoline drawing exercise in Step 3.11. We have also provided the solutions for the exercise on a …
This week is your last chance to submit your prediction in the weather forecasting game, or to see if you can improve on your score from the previous week. If …
Now that you have seen the demonstration of the Coriolis effect in Week 1, let’s look at how this tank of water represents the atmosphere rotating with the earth. Pete …
In this activity you’ll put into practice some of the knowledge you have learnt so far. You’ll be drawing various isolines on the maps we’ve provided, which will further help …
The above is a typical simplified weather symbol from a chart of weather observations. Let’s look at some other symbols which you may come across when looking at weather reports. …
As we mentioned in Week 1 of the course, mid-latitude depressions are one way in which the Earth moves heat from the warm Tropics to the colder Poles. Together with …
Carbon Dioxide (C02) concentrations in the atmosphere, increased by over 40% from 278 ppm (parts per million) in 1750 to 400 ppm in 2015. Figure 1: The diagram above shows …
Let’s look at the Sun first, and specifically the orbit of the Earth around the Sun. There are three ways in which the Earth’s orbit changes over time, known as …