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What We Know About the Weather on Earth

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The Exo-Weather Report

Part of the book series: Astronomers' Universe ((ASTRONOM))

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Abstract

Weather is such a ubiquitous part of our lives that most of us take it completely for granted. Yet it controls nearly every aspect of our life, from our route to and from work to the food we eat and more. The weather is the talking point for the random meeting, or the casual chat on the Metro. The weather is something that we all have an opinion on; most notably the accuracy, or perceived lack-thereof, of TV weather forecasts, or the dress sense of their presenters. Yet, most have little understanding of why weather happens at all.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    An interesting consequence of this would be that the Earth’s spin would decelerate. Winds would be blowing in the opposite direction to its spin and thus exert a frictional force on its surface.

  2. 2.

    A short paper entitled “An underlying predictability in the winter weather patterns in the North Atlantic Basin” will be published in the peer-review Journal “Hypothesis” by this author in the summer of 2016.

  3. 3.

    Equatorial Rossby Waves are indicated on surface pressure charts by pairs of high pressure and low pressure that alternate along the equator and move from east to west like their larger mid-latitude cousins. Each low or high to the south of the equator has a matching high or low (respectively) on the northern side.

  4. 4.

    There is an equivalent zone of convergence over South America during the southern hemispheres’ summer. Converging air in this zone brought severe flooding during the 2015–2016 El Nino event.

References

  1. Saide, P. E., Spak, S. N., Pierce, R. B., Otkin, J. A., Schaack, T. K., Heidinger, A. K., da Silva, A. M., Kacenelenbogen, M., Redemann, J. & Carmichael, G. R. (2015). Central American biomass burning smoke can increase tornado severity in the US. Geophysical Research Letters, Retrieved https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271384910_Central_American_biomass_burning_smoke_can_increase_tornado_severity_in_the_US. Available free on “ResearchGate.

  2. Evan, A. T., Ramanathan, V., Kossin, J. P., & Chung, C. E. (2011). Arabian Sea tropical cyclones intensified by emissions of black carbon and other aerosols. Nature, 479, 94–97.

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  3. Madden Julian oscillation. Retrieved from http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/MJO/MJO_1page_factsheet.pdf.

  4. Madden Julian oscillation impacts on the US. Retrieved from https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/what-mjo-and-why-do-we-care.

  5. Kelvin waves. http://www.ess.uci.edu/~yu/class/ess228/lecture.6.adjustment.all.pdf.

  6. Stevenson, D.S. (2016) An underlying predictability in winter weather patterns in the North Atlantic Basin. Hypothesis, 14(1): e3, doi:10.5779/hypothesis.v14i1.483.

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© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Stevenson, D.S. (2016). What We Know About the Weather on Earth. In: The Exo-Weather Report. Astronomers' Universe. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25679-5_1

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