AIR PRESSURE

• AIR PRESSURE IS THE WEIGHT OF AIR MOLECULES

PRESSING DOWN ON THE EARTH
• CHANGES WITH HEIGHT
• CHANGES WHEN AIR WARMS UP OR COOLS
DOWN
• CHANGES CAN CAUSE CHANGES IN THE
WEATHER
THINGS THAT AFFECT
AIR PRESSURE
1. TEMPERATURE
AS TEMPERATURE INCREASES, AIR PRESSURE
DECREASES
2. ALTITUDE
AS ALTITUDE INCREASES, AIR PRESSURE
DECREASES
3. HUMIDITY
AS HUMIDITY INCREASES, AIR PRESSURE
DECREASES
DIFFERENCE IN AIR
PRESSURE
 LOW AIR PRESSURE
• MOLECULES ARE MOVING FAST AND ARE FAR APART
• USUALLY BRINGS PRECIPITATION

HIGH AIR PRESSURE

• MOLECULES ARE MOVING SLOW AND ARE CLOSE TOGETHER
• USUALLY BRINGS CLEAR SKIES AND FAIR WEATHER
MEASURING AIR
PRESSURE
• BAROMETER
• MERCURY BAROMETER
• ANERIOD BAROMETER
• BAROGRAPH
BREEZES
 TYPES

• Sea Breeze
• Land Breeze
• Mountain Breeze
• Valley Breeze
 SEA BREEZE

• A sea breeze or onshore breeze is any

wind that blows from a large body of water
toward or onto a landmass; it develops due
to differences in air pressure created by the
differing heat capacities of water and dry
land.
ILLUSTRATION
 EXPLANATION

• On summer days, solar radiation warms the

land surface more strongly than the adjacent
sea: a pressure gradient from sea to land
results in a gentle, cooling, landward ‘sea
breeze’ whose maximum strength is usually
developed by late afternoon.
 LAND BREEZE

•A breeze blowing toward the

sea from the land, especially at
night, owing to the relative
warmth of the sea.
ILLUSTRATION
 EXPLANATION

• At night and in early morning cooler

land and relatively warmer sea produce
a reverse-flow convection cell, with a
seaward ‘land breeze’.
 VALLEY BREEZE

•Is produced by rapid warming

of the valley floor that causes
the air to expand and flow up
the slopes.
 MOUNTAIN BREEZE

•Nighttime land-surface radiation

cools the slopes, causing cooler,
denser air to drain into the
valley.
MONSOONS
 • A monsoon is a seasonal change in the
direction of the prevailing wind. This
windshift typically brings about a
marked change in local weather.
WHAT IS A • Monsoons cause wet and dry seasons
MONSOON? throughout much of the tropics.

• Monsoons always blow from cold to

warm regions.
 The most
prominent
monsoons occur
in:

SOUTH ASIA,
AFRICA,
AUSTRALIA,
PACIFIC COAST
OF CENTRAL
AMERICA.
HOW ARE MONSOONS FORMED?

• Monsoon winds are caused when the Sun

heats the atmosphere. It is a shift in wind
that occurs due to a change in local weather.
Simply speaking, when, there are differences
in temperatures between the oceans and
the continents, monsoon winds occur.
 HOW ARE MONSOONS FORMED?
• The primary cause of monsoons is the difference
between annual temperature trends over land and
sea. The apparent position of the Sun with
reference to the Earth oscillates from the Tropic
of Cancer to the Tropic of Capricorn. Thus the
low pressure region created by solar heating also
changes latitude. The northeast and southeast
trade winds converge in this low pressure zone,
which is also known as the Intertropical
Convergence Zone or ITCZ.
 1. Extreme heating and
cooling of large land
masses in relation to the
surrounding sea, which
impacts on pressure and
FACTORS THAT winds.
CAUSE 2. The Himalayas that are
MONSOONS high enough to interfere
with general
atmospheric circulation.
3. Movement northwards
of the ITCZ in summer
in the northern
hemisphere
 Summer Southwest Monsoon -
Habagat
 Summer Monsoon weather is characterized by a
strong, generally West or southwest breeze that is
responsible for bringing significant rainfall to the
Asian subcontinent and to South and East Asia.
MONSOONS IN The significant southwest monsoon rainfall is a by-
product of air passing over large areas of warm
THE equatorial ocean, stimulating increased levels of
evaporation from the ocean’s surface; the
PHILIPPINES southwest monsoon air, now laden with water
vapour, cools as it moves north and as it rises
over land; at some point the air is no longer able
retain its moisture and precipitates copious
volumes to irrigate rice fields and drench
rainforests, sometimes causing severe flooding
below hillsides that have been foolishly stripped of
forest cover by Man. It is the predominant
weather pattern from late April through to early
October each year, throughout most Asian
tropical destinations.
 Winter Northeast Monsoon - Amihan
• Winter Monsoon weather features a
generally less strong, East or northeast
breeze that is cool and dry (compared to
the Summer Monsoon weather) with
prolonged periods of successive cloudless
days.
• The Winter Monsoon features cool and dry
MONSOONS IN air that originates in a vast anticyclone - a
weather system with a high barometric
THE pressure - which forms over Siberia,
Mongolia and northern China during each
PHILIPPINES northern winter.
• The Winter Monsoon air from the
anticyclone pushes outward in a clockwise
motion from its centre and competes with
the Summer Monsoon over a period of a
week or two, usually starting in late
September and early October, before finally
dominating the weather with a cooler and
drier northeast monsoon, in most Asian
tropical and sub-tropical destinations,
through to the following April.
 ITCZ
Inter Tropical Convergence
Zone
 •is a belt of low pressure which
circles the Earth generally near
the equator where the trade
winds of the Northern and
Southern Hemispheres come
together.

ITCZ •is characterised by convective

activity which generates often
vigorous thunderstorms over
large areas.
•is most active over continental
land masses by day and
relatively less active over the
oceans.
 - a zonal band of
low atmospheric
pressure and thunderstorms
caused by converging Trade
Winds, rising air and intense
thermal heating at or near

ITCZ the Equator; the location of

the ITCZ shifts throughout
the year resulting in wet and
dry seasons in countries
located in the tropics.
ITCZ
 ITCZ
•The position of the ITCZ varies with the
seasons, and lags behind the sun's relative
position above the Earth's surface by about 1
to 2 months, and correlates generally to the
thermal equator.
 ITCZ
•Since water has a higher heat capacity than
land, the ITCZ propagates poleward more
prominently over land than over water, and
over the Northern Hemisphere than over
the Southern Hemisphere.
•The ITCZ appears as a band of clouds,
usually thunderstorms, that encircle the
globe near the Equator.
 ITCZ
• In July and August, over the Atlantic and Pacific, the
ITCZ is between 5 and 15 degrees north of the
Equator, but further north over the land masses of
Africa and Asia. In eastern Asia, the ITCZ may
propagate up to 30 degrees north of the Equator. In
January, over the Atlantic, the ITCZ generally sits no
further south than the Equator, but extends much
further south over South America, Southern Africa,
and Australia. Over land, the ITCZ tends to follow
the sun's zenith point.
ITCZ
 FORMATION
• The ITCZ is formed by vertical motion largely
appearing as convective activity of
thunderstorms driven by solar heating, which
effectively draw air in; these are the trade
winds. The ITCZ is effectively a tracer of the
ascending branch of the Hadley cell and is wet.
The dry descending branch is the horse
latitudes.
 FORMATION
• Sometimes, a double ITCZ forms, with one
located north and another south of the Equator,
one of which is usually stronger than the other.
When this occurs, a narrow ridge of high
pressure forms between the two convergence
zones.
FORMATION
ITCZ
• Where the trade winds are weak, the ITCZ is characterised
by isolated Cumulus (Cu) and Cumulonimbus (Cb) cells.
However, where the trade winds are stronger, the ITCZ can
spawn a solid line of active Cb cells embedded with other
cloud types developing as a result of instability at higher
levels. Cb tops can reach and sometimes exceed an altitude
of 55,000 feet, and the ITCZ can be as wide as 300 nautical
miles in places presenting a formidable obstacle to aircraft
transit.
 Aircraft flying through an active
ITCZ (strong trade winds) will
probably encounter some or all
the hazards associated with Cb
clouds such
as icing, turbulence, lightning,
and wind shear.
EFFECTS
 However, it is in this zone that
the most severe effects may
often be encountered. In
particular, it is within the ITCZ
that convective breakthroughs
of the tropopause often occur,
with the majority occurring
EFFECTS over land, especially in the
second half of each day.
Convective penetration of the
tropopause is less common
over oceanic areas where the
phenomenon is more likely to
occur in the early hours of
each day, generating more
isolated cells.
 TROPOPAUSE
• The tropopause is the upper limit of the troposphere and
therefore constitutes the boundary between it and
the Stratosphere.
 Research sponsored
by NASA has shown that 1% of
tropical deep convective
EFFECTS activity exceeds 46,000 ft
altitude, with a small
proportion of this reaching
much greater heights.
 Variation in the location of the
intertropical convergence zone
drastically affects rainfall in
many equatorial nations,
resulting in the wet and dry
EFFECTS seasons of the tropics rather
than the cold and warm
ON WEATHER seasons of higher latitudes.
Longer term changes in the
intertropical convergence zone
can result in
severe droughts or flooding in
nearby areas.
 Within the ITCZ the average winds
are slight, unlike the zones north and
EFFECTS south of the equator where the trade
winds feed. Early sailors named this
ON WEATHER belt of calm the doldrums because of
the inactivity and stagnation they
found themselves in after days of no
wind. To find oneself becalmed in this
region in a hot and muggy climate
could mean death in an era when
wind was the only effective way to
propel ships across the ocean. Even
today leisure and competitive sailors
attempt to cross the zone as quickly
as possible as the erratic weather and
wind patterns may cause unexpected
delays.
 HAZARD
Inter Tropical Convergence
Zone
 Thunderstorms along the Intertropical
Convergence Zone played a role in the loss
of Air France Flight 447, which left Rio de
Janeiro–Galeão International Airport on
Sunday, May 31, 2009, at about 7:00 p.m.
local time (6:00 p.m. EDT or
10:00 p.m. UTC) and had been expected to
AIR FRANCE land at Charles de Gaulle
Airport near Paris on Monday, June 1, 2009,
FLIGHT 447, at 11:15 a.m. (5:15 a.m. EDT or 9:15 a.m.
UTC). The aircraft crashed with no
survivors while flying through a series of
large ITCZ thunderstorms, and ice forming
rapidly on airspeed sensors was the
precipitating cause for a cascade of human
errors which ultimately doomed the flight.
Most aircraft flying these routes are able to
avoid the larger convective cells without
incident.