- Industry: Weather
- Number of terms: 60695
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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 range of ambient temperature in which normal metabolism provides enough heat to maintain an essentially constant body temperature in homeothermic animals. The limits of the zone depend on the species and breed of an animal and its age, sex, degree of acclimatization, how it is fed, and even the time of day. The zone is narrow for the young of a species (e.g., 29°–30°C for a chick) and wide for a well- fed large adult (e.g., −30° to +25°C for a cow).
Industry:Weather
The values of a variable generated successively in time. A continuous barograph trace is an example of a continuous time series, while a sequence of hourly pressures is an example of a discrete time series. Graphically, a time series is usually plotted with time as the abscissa and the values of the function as the ordinate. Time series may be either stationary or nonstationary. For stationary time series the actual dynamics that motivate the series are constant from one period to the next. For nonstationary time series the dynamics are continually changing and such series are less susceptible to statistical analysis.
Industry:Weather
The scientific study of the atmosphere above the boundary layer. In addition to the presentation of upper-air data (temperature, wind, pressure, etc. ), it includes analysis of the causes of spatial and temporal variations of upper-air variables. Among the more common presentations are spatial maps of means over specified time periods (months, seasons, years). See climatology.
Industry:Weather
The state of the atmosphere, mainly with respect to its effects upon life and human activities. As distinguished from climate, weather consists of the short-term (minutes to days) variations in the atmosphere. Popularly, weather is thought of in terms of temperature, humidity, precipitation, cloudiness, visibility, and wind. 2. As used in the taking of surface weather observations, a category of individual and combined atmospheric phenomena that must be drawn upon to describe the local atmospheric activity at the time of observation. Listed weather types include tornado, waterspout, funnel cloud, thunderstorm and severe storm, liquid precipitation (drizzle, rain, rain showers), freezing precipitation (freezing drizzle, freezing rain), and frozen precipitation (snow, snow pellets, snow grains, hail, ice pellets, ice crystals). These elements, with the exception of the first three, are denoted by a letter code in the observation. With the METAR code, reporting weather also includes an intensity qualifier (light, moderate, or heavy) or proximity qualifier. The weather used in synoptic weather observations and marine weather observations is reported in two categories, “present weather” and “past weather. ” The “present weather” table consists of 100 possible conditions, with 10 possibilities for “past weather”; both are encoded numerically. Another method, which has the advantage of being independent of language, is the recording of weather types using symbols. There are 100 symbols that identify with the numeric codes of the synoptic observation. 3. To undergo change due to exposure to the atmosphere. See also weathering.
Industry:Weather
The system used to define the finite-difference approximation applied in the direction roughly perpendicular to the earth's surface in a numerical model. The most obvious example is the use of geometric height; however, there are numerical or physical advantages to many other vertical coordinate systems. For example, a “terrain following” vertical coordinate system is one with a lowest coordinate surface that follows the terrain. See sigma vertical coordinate, eta vertical coordinate, hybrid vertical coordinate, isentropic vertical coordinate, pressure vertical coordinates.
Industry:Weather
The visibility when no obstructions to vision exist in sufficient quantity to reduce the visibility to less than seven miles. Otherwise, in an aviation weather observation, an obstruction to vision must be entered.
Industry:Weather
The shady (usually poleward, or north in the Northern Hemisphere) side of a mountain. The term originated and is most often used in reference to mountains in the Alps. It is characterized by a lower timber line and snow line than the sunny side (the adret).
Industry:Weather
Very small atmospheric particles, less than 10 nm in diameter. Such particles are thought to be formed by binary nucleation of compounds, such as sulfuric acid and water, and lead to an increase in the total number of particles present. The increased particle number density has consequences for climate effects such as light scattering.
Industry:Weather
The process of determining upper-air winds represented by the in-flight movement of a radiosonde balloon, either by tracking the radiosonde from the ground using a radio theodolite or by the radiosonde itself using radio signals from aids to navigation (i.e., Loran, GPS, etc. ).
Industry:Weather
Usually, the magnitude of the vorticity vector, all components included, as opposed to only the vertical component of the vorticity.
Industry:Weather
