- 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, ...
A molecule, consisting of one central oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms along an angle of 104°, forming an electrostatic dipole because of the asymmetric distribution of charge. The dipole results in a high dielectric constant for water, whether in vapor, liquid, or solid form. Resonances in the intermolecular bonds result in absorption and emission of electromagnetic radiation at near- and thermal-infrared wavelengths, hence the importance of water vapor in the greenhouse effect in the atmosphere and water substance as precipitation in the scattering and absorption of radar waves.
Industry:Weather
A modification of the Savart polariscope in which a Wollaston prism is used as an analyzer. This instrument has a large colorless field and a high fringe-brightness level.
Industry:Weather
A model of the oceanic thermocline in which parcels are advected horizontally while maintaining their potential vorticity. The potential vorticity is set at the time of subduction, when the parcel leaves the mixed layer and enters the thermocline.
Industry:Weather
A mirage in which the angular height of the image is greater than that of the object. As the width is unaffected (the angular width of image width remains that of the object because the refractive index gradient is vertical), the aspect ratio is altered and distant images appear vertically enlarged. Towering often accompanies sinking.
Industry:Weather
A migratory, organized region of convective showers and thunderstorms in the Tropics that maintains its identity for at least 24 hours but has no closed wind circulation. The system may or may not be associated with a detectable perturbation of the low-level wind or pressure field.
Industry:Weather
The quantity measured by a thermometer. Bodies in thermal equilibrium with each other have the same temperature. In gaseous fluid dynamics, temperature represents molecular kinetic energy, which is then consistent with the equation of state and with definitions of pressure as the average force of molecular impacts and density as the total mass of molecules in a volume. For an ideal gas, temperature is the ratio of internal energy to the specific heat capacity at constant volume.
Industry:Weather
A method of stream gauging in which depth and vertically averaged velocity measurements are taken at successive locations along a stream cross section and are numerically integrated to give the streamflow discharge.
Industry:Weather
A method of minimal flight planning utilizing the physical principles that govern the propagation of a wave front through a medium. Time curves are the principal reference lines.
Industry:Weather
A method of measuring stream discharge in which point velocity measurements are translated into average cross-sectional flow velocities by contouring the point velocities; these averages are then multiplied by the areas of the cross sections to give the discharge.
Industry:Weather
A mercury barometer that measures atmospheric pressure by weighing the mercury in the column or the cistern.
Industry:Weather
