Atmospheric Patterns
What are atmospheric patterns?
Atmospheric Patterns' Research Objectives:
- To better understand natural weather events for more effective climate forecasting
- To gather data for climate models and future climate predictions
Certain air masses will warm and rise up, creating a low pressure area, while other cooler air masses higher up in the atmosphere will subsequently fall, resulting in high pressure areas. The air that flows between high and low pressure areas of the earth, result in an atmospheric pattern. This natural movement can be on a local or a global scale, and is something that we all experience on a daily basis when we experience the local weather - sometimes it may be clear and dry (high pressure) or cloudy and windy (low pressure) or somewhere in between.
The weather extremes that are products of these natural atmospheric patterns are what the Earth Observing Laboratory's field projects study.
Why do we study atmospheric patterns?
Understanding the fundamentals of how natural atmospheric patterns work is the foundation for all other types of atmospheric studies. Knowing the intricate details of how these complexcycles function allow atmospheric scientists to expand their studies of severe weather, climate change, air pollution and the effects that changes in the atmosphere has on the biosphere.
EOL field projects studying atmospheric patterns:
- DYNAMO 2011 :: Studying how various seasonal atmospheric patterns interact with one another over the Indian Ocean
- VOCALS 2008 :: Studying ocean-atmosphere-land interactions of the Southeast Pacific Ocean and South America
- BuFEx 2005 & 2007 :: Studies the influence of large scale land use on the regional climate in Southwest Australia
Do you still have questions about atmospheric patterns?
If you still have a few more questions about atmospheric patterns, feel free to ask a scientist! You can find a scientist who specializes in your particular question. Click on their name to send them an email, or click on some on some of the other provided links to learn more about their specialty!
