scispace - formally typeset
Search or ask a question
Book

Meteorology Today: An Introduction to Weather, Climate, and the Environment

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an overview of the Earth and its atmosphere, including the following: 1. Earth and Its Atmosphere. 2. Earth's Changing Climate. 3. Seasonal and Daily Temperatures. 4. Atmospheric Humidity. 5. Air Pressure and Winds. 6. Stability and Cloud Development. 7. Precipitation.
Abstract: 1. Earth and Its Atmosphere. 2. Energy: Warming the Earth and the Atmosphere. 3. Seasonal and Daily Temperatures. 4. Atmospheric Humidity. 5. Condensation: Dew, Fog, and Clouds. 6. Stability and Cloud Development. 7. Precipitation. 8. Air Pressure and Winds. 9. Wind: Small-Scale and Local Systems. 10. Wind: Global Systems. 11. Air Masses and Fronts. 12. Middle-Latitude Cyclones. 13. Weather Forecasting. 14. Thunderstorms. 15. Tornadoes. 16. Hurricanes. 17. Earth's Changing Climate. 18. Global Climate. 19. Air Pollution. 20. Light, Color, and Atmospheric Optics.
Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors evaluated the severity of meteorological, agricultural, and hydrological forms of drought using six weighted evaluation criteria: robustness, tractability, transparency, sophistication, extendability, and dimensionality.
Abstract: Indices for objectively quantifying the severity of meteorological, agricultural, and hydrological forms of drought are discussed. Indices for each drought form are judged according to six weighted evaluation criteria: robustness, tractability, transparency, sophistication, extendability, and dimensionality. The indices considered most promising for succinctly summarizing drought severity are computed for two climate divisions in Oregon for 24 water years, 1976-99. The assessment determined that the most valuable indices for characterizing meteorological, hydrological, and agricultural droughts are rainfall deciles, total water deficit, and computed soil moisture, respectively.

1,019 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A compilation of 68 studies from throughout many of the world9s mountain belts reveals an empirically consistent and linear relationship between change in elevation and change in the isotopic composition of precipitation along altitudinal transects.
Abstract: A compilation of 68 studies from throughout many of the world9s mountain belts reveals an empirically consistent and linear relationship between change in elevation and change in the isotopic composition of precipitation along altitudinal transects. The isotopic composition of precipitation decreases linearly with increasing elevation in most regions of the world except in the Himalayas and at elevations >5000 m. There are no significant differences in isotopic lapse rates from most regions of the world (∼0.28 permil/100 m) except at the extreme latitudes where isotopic lapse rates are higher. Given information on past changes in the isotopic composition of precipitation preserved in pedogenic or authigenic minerals, this global isotopic lapse rate can be used to place numerical constraints on the topographic development of some ancient mountain belts or plateaus. There are many complicating factors that can confound interpretation of paleoelevation change based on stable isotopes, and many of these are unique to specific mountain belts or time periods. Relevant to all stable isotope based paleoelevation change studies is the temperature dependent isotope fractionation between a pedogenic or authigenic mineral and the water from which it forms. In cases where isotopic proxy minerals are sampled from localities where temperature will change simultaneously with elevation change, the apparent change in the isotopic composition of precipitation may be dampened by several permil. This suggests that samples taken from the rainshadow side of an emerging orographic barrier may be more likely to preserve isotopic changes resulting from mountain uplift than samples taken from atop a rising mountain range or plateau.

613 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is found that participants who multitasked on a laptop during a lecture scored lower on a test compared to those who did not multitask, and participants who were in direct view of a multitasking peer scored lower than those who were not.
Abstract: Laptops are commonplace in university classrooms. In light of cognitive psychology theory on costs associated with multitasking, we examined the effects of in-class laptop use on student learning in a simulated classroom. We found that participants who multitasked on a laptop during a lecture scored lower on a test compared to those who did not multitask, and participants who were in direct view of a multitasking peer scored lower on a test compared to those who were not. The results demonstrate that multitasking on a laptop poses a significant distraction to both users and fellow students and can be detrimental to comprehension of lecture content.

550 citations

BookDOI
31 Jan 1992
TL;DR: The transition from the Eocene to the Oligocene epoch was the most significant event in Earth history since the extinction of dinosaurs as mentioned in this paper, and the separation of Antarctica from Australia was a critical factor in changing oceanic circulation and ultimately world climate.
Abstract: The transition from the Eocene to the Oligocene epoch was the most significant event in Earth history since the extinction of dinosaurs. As the first Antarctic ice sheets appeared, major extinctions and faunal turnovers took place in the land and in the sea, eliminating forms adapted to a tropical world and replacing them with the ancestors of most of our modern animal and plant life. Through a detailed study of climatic conditions and of organisms buried in Eocene-Oligocene sediments, this volume shows that the separation of Antarctica from Australia was a critical factor in changing oceanic circulation and ultimately world climate. In this book, contributors examine the full range of Eocene and Oligocene phenomena. Their articles cover nearly every major group of organisms in the ocean and on land and include evidence from palaeontology, stable isotopes, sedimentology, seismology and computer climatic modelling. The volume concludes with an update of the geochronological framework of the late Palaeogenic period.

478 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The results based on Kapur's entropy reveal that CS, ELR-CS and WDO method can be accurately and efficiently used in multilevel thresholding problem.
Abstract: The objective of image segmentation is to extract meaningful objects. A meaningful segmentation selects the proper threshold values to optimize a criterion using entropy. The conventional multilevel thresholding methods are efficient for bi-level thresholding. However, they are computationally expensive when extended to multilevel thresholding since they exhaustively search the optimal thresholds to optimize the objective functions. To overcome this problem, two successful swarm-intelligence-based global optimization algorithms, cuckoo search (CS) algorithm and wind driven optimization (WDO) for multilevel thresholding using Kapur's entropy has been employed. For this purpose, best solution as fitness function is achieved through CS and WDO algorithm using Kapur's entropy for optimal multilevel thresholding. A new approach of CS and WDO algorithm is used for selection of optimal threshold value. This algorithm is used to obtain the best solution or best fitness value from the initial random threshold values, and to evaluate the quality of a solution, correlation function is used. Experimental results have been examined on standard set of satellite images using various numbers of thresholds. The results based on Kapur's entropy reveal that CS, ELR-CS and WDO method can be accurately and efficiently used in multilevel thresholding problem.

392 citations