The Oceans and Weather Main Ideas and Points

Weather and the ocean are connected. Change incondition in the tropical ocean have caused el nino in many places. Connections between the ocean and the atmosphere can contribute to changes in weather and long term climate change. The ocean and atmosphere work together sharing the task of exporting heat from equatorial regions toward the poles. Some of this heat is carried in warm currents such as the Gulf Stream. Tropical ocean passes large amounts of heat to the atmosphere. The warm moist air rises because its less dense than the surrounding atmosphere. Rotation of the earth deflects air masses into ribbons of air that spiral around the globe. This allows transfer of heat between north and south. Cold and warm air masses collide to create powerful storms. Ocean generates storms at low altitudes often called hurricanes or cyclones. Hurricanes only occur in places where the temp exceeds 27 degrees celsius. Hurricanes develop from eddy in the wind which causes low pressure center to form. If the conditions in the ocean and the upper atmosphere are right, 10% of these storms turn into hurricanes. Air moves inward from all directions the low pressure center of the developing hurricane picking up moisture evaporating from the warm ocean. As more air comes towards the middle, the eye it has no place to go but upward where it creates clusters of thunderstorms and releases large amounts of rain and latent heat. The density of the air forces the warm heat to go up towards the atmosphere. This causes the atmospheric pressure on the ocean to drop and wind near sea level begin to circle counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern hemisphere. The temp of the surface of the sea water allows the wind to pick up more moisture and release more heat. The equilibrium does not last forever. El nino causes extreme weather in many places. It can cause flooding and landslides. El nino can cause severe droughts in Australia and Indonesia. Scientists are trying to figure out how they can predict El nino from earlier so that they can warn citizens living in that area. With a better understanding of the ocean, scientists may be able to predict el nino earlier.

Main Ideas summarized This article was basically talking about how the atmosphere and oceans can contribute to a number of natural disasters. The first one is a hurricane. We hear about hurricanes the most because they occur in the eastern part of the United States. One of the most famous hurricanes are hurricane sandy and hurricane Katrina. These events are very serious problem because they can lead to millions of lives being lost. The next type of natural disaster this article was talking about was monsoons. This is when there is intense heat during the summer, but then rain eventually comes to those areas where there is drought. The last thing they talked about was el nino. El nino is very dangerous because it can lead to mudslides,

flooding, landslides etc. This is also a very dangerous thing. We cannot predict el nino's. Scientists are trying to figure out how they can warn citizens about El nino, so that the citizens can be aware. With a better understanding of the ocean and the earth, scientists may be able to predict these environmental disasters in the future. My Own Thoughts This article was very informative. They talked about hurricanes, Monsoons and the El Nino Effect. It was very interesting because I never realized how big of a role the ocean and atmosphere played in these events. It is interesting how unpredictable our environment can be. Out of the three different events they talked about, the one that I was the most interested in were hurricanes. This is because, living in Okinawa Japan, I have experienced many typhoons. However, they have never been strong enough to harm people or cause any excessive damage during the time that I lived there. Although this is true, there have been many incidents of deaths caused by hurricanes and typhoons and many homes have been destroyed as well. If scientists were able to predict earlier and see how catastrophic a certain disaster will be, more people will be able to prepare. In the article, they mentioned how a better understanding of the ocean will help them predict environmental disasters in the future. I think that is a great idea, but it is a very difficult task to do. The ocean is so large and complicated. I believe it is one of the most difficult things to research in this world. I hope in the future, we are able to understand it more in depth, so we can prepare for these disasters. So What? El nino, hurricanes and other natural disasters are difficult to predict and they are very dangerous. The ocean and the atmosphere both contribute to these storms. What if? What if we were able to predict these natural disasters earlier? If we were able to predict these disasters earlier, I think that many more lives would be saved and we would have a much better understanding of the ocean and the world that we live in. Says Who? The people who wrote this article and scientists around the world.

What does this remind you of? This reminds me of hurricane Katrina and hurricane Sandy because both of those storms affected millions of lives.