- Industry: Weather
- Number of terms: 60695
- Number of blossaries: 0
- Company Profile:
The American Meteorological Society promotes the development and dissemination of information and education on the atmospheric and related oceanic and hydrologic sciences and the advancement of their professional applications. Founded in 1919, AMS has a membership of more than 14,000 professionals, ...
The irrecoverable conversion of flow energy into thermal energy due to shear stress and the generation of turbulent vortices.
Industry:Weather
The incorporation of gaseous molecules into biological systems or by industrial processes. The term is most commonly applied to nitrogen fixation, which provides a mechanism for biota to acquire nutrient nitrogen from the relatively inert nitrogen in the atmosphere.
Industry:Weather
The identification of an observed climate signal with a structure characteristic of a predicted climate change. The fingerprint method requires the analysis of a multivariate signal, involving changes in a single climate variable at many places or levels in the atmosphere, or changes in two or more different variables. This method is used in attempts to attribute observed climate change to a given cause, such as increased greenhouse gas concentrations.
Industry:Weather
The horizontal distance along an aircraft flight path from the “edge” of a gust to the point at which the gust reaches its maximum speed.
Industry:Weather
The highest permanently observable layer of the ionosphere. It exhibits a distinct maximum of free-electron density occurring at a height that ranges from about 225 km in the polar winter to over 400 km in daytime near the magnetic equator. Like the other ionospheric layers, the F2-layer is formed by absorption of short-wavelength solar radiation, but its behavior and properties are more complex. Unlike the other ionospheric layers, the F2-layer tends to rise during the middle of the day, except at middle to high latitudes in winter. Its maximum electron density occurs during the day, its minimum usually just before sunrise. It is the layer that is most useful for long-range radio transmission. See F1-layer.
Industry:Weather
The heating effect exerted by the atmosphere upon the earth because certain trace gases in the atmosphere (water vapor, carbon dioxide, etc. ) absorb and reemit infrared radiation. Most of the sunlight incident on the earth is transmitted through the atmosphere and absorbed at the earth's surface. The surface tries to maintain energy balance in part by emitting its own radiation, which is primarily at the infrared wavelengths characteristic of the earth's temperature. Most of the heat radiated by the surface is absorbed by trace gases in the overlying atmosphere and reemitted in all directions. The component that is radiated downward warms the earth's surface more than would occur if only the direct sunlight were absorbed. The magnitude of this enhanced warming is the greenhouse effect. Earth's annual mean surface temperature of 15°C is 33°C higher as a result of the greenhouse effect than the mean temperature resulting from radiative equilibrium of a blackbody at the earth's mean distance from the sun. The term “greenhouse effect” is something of a misnomer. It is an analogy to the trapping of heat by the glass panes of a greenhouse, which let sunlight in. In the atmosphere, however, heat is trapped radiatively, while in an actual greenhouse, heat is mechanically prevented from escaping (via convection) by the glass enclosure.
Industry:Weather
The head that is lost by fluid flowing in a stream or conduit due to friction per unit weight of fluid.
Industry:Weather
The glacial anticyclone that is supposed to overlie Greenland; analogous to the antarctic anticyclone.
Industry:Weather
The general region of the ionosphere containing the F1-layer and F2-layer.
Industry:Weather
