The atmosphere
The diagram in Figure 1 provides an illustration of the Earth’s Radiation budget. It shows the various ways energy or radiation can move through the climate system . Incoming solar …
Course: Come Rain or Shine: Understanding the Weather
The leaky bucket
How are the flow of energy we get from the Sun and the flow of energy the Earth loses to space, related to each other? A useful analogy is a …
The Sun and the Earth’s Climate
What determines the climate of the Earth? Ultimately, the Sun, our nearest star. Solar energy is absorbed by the Earth’s surface, warming it and driving the weather patterns and therefore …
Introduction to anticyclones
So far, we have been looking at low pressure systems; cyclones. But what about high pressure systems; anticyclones? From a weather perspective anticyclones can be quite boring. Where the air …
Sylvia’s solution
How did you get on? In this video, Sylvia demonstrates the solution to the air mass exercise in the previous Step. You may have noticed the ‘geostrophic wind scale’ in …
Weather forecast game
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. We’ve included a link to …
Understanding Weather Fronts and Balloon Launches
Weather fronts are boundaries between two different air masses, and tend to be the location of a lot of cloud and rain. When we look at weather maps there is …
Balloon launch
Watch Pete launch a weather balloon and explain how the radiosonde it carries can be used to measure the temperature, humidity and pressure profile of the whole atmosphere.
Measuring the temperature at home
Measuring the speed and direction of the wind is one of many practical ways you can investigate the weather in your surroundings. In this video, Sylvia demonstrates how to use …
Measuring the weather at home
In this video, Janet Barlow, Professor of Environmental Physics in the Department of Meteorology demonstrates how you can measure the speed and direction of the wind using a bubble machine. …
Types of rain
In Week 1 you explored how rain forms when air cools, the rate of condensation becomes faster than the rate at which water is evaporating and cloud droplets form. If …
Identifying air masses on a weather map
In this activity, your task is to work out what the weather was like in the UK, from the three weather maps provided below. Your answers must be based, only, …
Recognising air masses
Now you’ve completed the quiz in the previous Step, take a look at the table below which summarises what is happening to the air from the four major air masses …
UK Air Masses
Let’s think about the properties and characteristics of the air reaching the UK. Let’s start with the concept of air masses and consider the properties of the air that will …
Reading a weather map
In this second exercise, your task is to identify what the weather is currently doing in each of the marked examples (Figures 1–4). Don’t worry about how the weather might …