Climate Patterns II

Introduction:

Weather refers to the conditions that exist right now and into the next few weeks. Weather may change suddenly at any particular location. Climate, however, is a term that refers to long-term patterns of weather that affect an area over many years. Although climates do change, the changes are gradual, not sudden. Fossil evidence does show that climates have changed, but the climate changes were caused by continents drifting to different a locations, a meteorite hitting the Earth and the resulting dust cloud blocking out sunlight for several years, a long term change in weather leading to an ice age or an interglacial period or volcanic activity creating a range of mountains. Global warming may lead to long-term weather changes and therefore changes in climate.

In this investigation you will consider how wind and pressure belts, nearness to large bodies of water, and position with respect to mountains, inland regions or coastlines affect climate.

Objective: When you have completed this investigation, you should be able to:

1)Identify different climate zones based on climate ratios.

2)Determine the effect of latitude, planetary winds, elevation, mountain ranges, and large bodies of water on climate.

Materials:

Colored pencilsSharp lead pencil with eraser

Procedure:

1)On Map (a) “Wind Belts, Moisture, Pressure”, lightly draw in arrows showing the prevailing wind belts using a lead pencil. Refer to your Reference Tables. Use the latitudes to guide you. For each wind belt, draw 1 arrow in the ocean off both coastlines and 2 arrows on the continent.

2)On Map (b) “Climate Zones”, use a blue colored pencil to draw arrows showing position of cold ocean currents that affect certain coastlines. Use a red colored pencil to draw arrows showing the position of warm ocean currents. Refer to your Reference Tables. Obviously, current that start from the equatorial regions will be warm and currents that start from Polar Regions will be cold.

3)On Map (c), use a sharp lead pencil to draw in P/Ep isolines using a 0.4 interval. Disregard the 0.5 isoline that has been drawn. YOU NEED TO DRAW THE 0.4, 0.8 and 1.2 ISOLINES. Climate can be described by determining the ratio of P to Ep as follows:

P/Ep / Climate Type
Less than 0.4 / Arid
0.4 to 0.8 / Semiarid
0.8 to 1.2 / Sub-humid
Greater than 1.2 / Humid

4)Use an orange colored pencil to shade in the arid areas. Use a yellow colored pencil to shade in the semi-arid areas. Use a light green colored pencil to shade in the sub-humid areas. Use a light colored pencil to shade in the humid areas.

5)Map (d) shows the locations of 6 weather stations (1 to 6) on the imaginary continents. On the Report Sheet are 6 climographs that would best describe them. Write the number of the location on the map in the blank provided at the top of the corresponding climograph on the Report Sheet.