2. Severe Weather Part 1: Summary By Joshua Tseng Room 302; Mr Ashraf’s Class

3. Presentation Summary • Severe weather comes in many varieties: • Thunderstorms • Tornados • Tropical Cyclones • Droughts • And More !!! • Greenhouse Effect / Global Warming

4. Vocabulary You Will Learn • Meteorology: The scientific study of the Earth’s atmosphere. • Drought: An extended period of time with inadequate water. • Precipitation: Any form of water that falls due to gravity. • Rain, Sleet, Snow, Hail • Ecology: Scientific study of the interaction between organisms and their environment. • Convection: Action of warm air rising, and cold air sinking. • Humidity: The amount of water vapor in the air. • Greenhouse Effect: A process where heat from the sun and the Earth’s surface is absorbed and trapped in the atmosphere. • Global Warming: The rise in the annual, average temperature of the Earth.

5. THUNDERSTORMS !!

6. SUN Trouble is Brewing !!! Warm air rising EARTH’S SURFACE

7. CONVECTION Cold Air being forced DOWN Rain and wind hitting the surface

8. Did You Know.....

9. Tornadoes !!

10. Tornados are created from SUPERCELL thunderstorms. • Supercell storms need really warm AND humid air to form • Like thunderstorms, tornadoes more commonly occur in warmer months. • In the United States, tornadoes occur most commonly in “Tornado Alley.”

11. A “SUPERCELL” THUNDERSTORM Tornado Funnel Forming

12. How Tornadoes Form HIGH WIND SPEED LOW WIND SPEED WIND FUNNEL TORNADO

14. Here’s a Question.....

15. DROUGHT • Seventy-one percent of the Earth’s surface is water. • A meteorlogical Drought is a long period of time with below-normal rainfall that kills vegetables and plants and dries up rivers and even lakes. • Think of the effects as Drought Dominoes!

16. DroughtDominoes??

17. DroughtDominoes?? Drought

18. DroughtDominoes?? Crops Fail Drought

19. DroughtDominoes?? Crops Fail Drought Food Shortage

20. DroughtDominoes?? Starvation, Famine Crops Fail Drought Food Shortage

21. Tropical Cyclones

22. TROPICAL CYCLONES are the strongest storms on Earth. • They can grow to amazing sizes with incredible wind speeds. • Tropical cyclones use warm and moist air as fuel. • Warm air, RISES. When this happens over the warm ocean, massive tropical cyclones then form.

24. Did You Know..... - Storms that form south of the equator spin clockwise; those north of the equator spin counter-clockwise. - When the winds reach 39mph, the storm is called a “Tropical Storm”. When it reaches 74mph, the storm is officially a “Tropical Cyclone”. - A tropical cyclone produces as much energy every second as all the electrical power plants on Earth COMBINED.

25. BEYOND THE BOOK

28. THE MAJOR GREENHOUSE GASSES