Weather Extra Credit!!

Desert Places by: Robert Frost

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast In a field I looked into going past, And the ground almost covered smooth in snow, But a few weeds and stubble showing last. The woods around it have it--it is theirs. All animals are smothered in their lairs. I am too absent-spirited to count; The loneliness includes me unawares. And lonely as it is that loneliness Will be more lonely ere it will be less-- A blanker whiteness of benighted snow With no expression, nothing to express. They cannot scare me with their empty spaces Between stars--on stars where no human race is. I have it in me so much nearer home To scare myself with my own desert places. In the poem above, "Desert Places" written by Robert Frost has weather used by describing snow. Robert Frost mentions how snow feels so still on the ground and what happens when snow falls. The poem is greatly enhanced by the poet's knowledge of weather because it is describing many of the aspects of snow. It gives a clear message of what is trying to be indicated. Without weather being mentioned, the poem would be exceedingly different. The reader would have no clue of what the author is trying to say in his poem. Most of the poem is about snow, and removing the mention of snow would take all the meaning out. Many literary devices are used throughout the poem. Descriptive details such as "a blanker whiteness of benighted snow" are applied. Some of the verses have rhymes within them, for example, theirs and lairs in the second verse. Not only that, imagery is used in the entire poem like," And the ground almost covered smooth in snow." This poem does not further my knowledge about weather. I already know much about snow and how it looks and how it is formed.

Layers of the Atmosphere

Troposphere, stratosphere, thermosphere, and mesosphere are the four main layers of the atmosphere. The troposphere is the lowest layer and most of the clouds occur here. Containing most of the atmosphere’s mass, the troposphere extends twelve kilometers from the earth’s surface. A thin called the buffer zone divides the troposphere and the stratosphere. The layer above the troposphere is the stratosphere which contains the ozone layer. It extends from twelve kilometers to fifty kilometers and gets heat towards the top of the layer. Protecting the earth from meteoroids, the mesosphere is the coldest part of the atmosphere. Broken up into two layers, the thermosphere occupies the aurora borealis. The ionosphere and the exosphere are the two layers within the thermosphere. The ionosphere is a very thin layer which makes long-distance communication possible. Electrically charged gas molecules are what the ionosphere is made up of, whereas, the exosphere has many of the satellites.

http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/earth/atmosphere.html

Winds

The horizontal movement of air is also known as wind. Local and Global winds are the two most general types of winds. Global Winds blow from a specific direction whereas local winds blow from any direction. Another difference between the two winds is local winds cover a shorter distance than global winds.

Local winds are caused by the small-scale convection currents. There are also two breezes that go along with local winds, a sea breeze and a land breeze. The air flow from the sea to the land is a sea breeze. A sea breeze occurs during the day as the warm air on land rises and the cool air from the sea takes the warm air’s place. Taking place during the night, a land breeze is when the warm air on the sea rises and the cool air on the land takes the warm air’s place. A common land and sea breeze is a monsoon.

Global Winds are mostly caused by the unequal heating of the Earth’s surface. Areas near the equator get the direct rays of the sun which heats the surface of the Earth very quickly. The warm air by the equator rises and sinks near the poles. Because of this a global pattern is produced. Global winds do not move north to south, but move from the rotation of the Earth. In the Northern Hemisphere, winds curve to the right and in the Southern Hemisphere, winds curve to the left. This movement of wind is called the Coriolis effect.

http://www.eduplace.com/science/hmxs/es/pdf/5rs_3_9-3.pdf