- 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, ...
1. In atmospheric electricity, any one of the three radioactive inert gases, radon, thoron, and actinon, that contributes to atmospheric ionization by virtue of the ionizing effect of the alpha particles that each emits on disintegration. These three gases are isotopic to each other, all having atomic number 86. They are members of distinct families of radioactive elements, but each is formed as a result of alpha emission and each decays by that process. They form in the interstices of soil or porous rocks containing their respective parent atoms in the forms of salts or minerals. By the process of exhalation, they enter the surface layers of the atmosphere and are then carried upward by turbulence and convection. 2. Any gaseous material containing radioactive atoms.
Industry:Weather
1. In a propagation medium consisting of a dispersion of scattering particles, the situation whereby the electromagnetic field in the vicinity of any particle is unaffected by scattering from the other particles. Then the total scattered field is just the sum of the fields scattered by the individual particles, each of which is acted on by the external field in isolation from the other particles. 2. The assumption that the total scattered field from a dispersion of scattering particles is the sum of the fields scattered by the individual particles. Whether single scattering is a good approximation depends on the characteristics of the particles, the wavelength of the radiation, and the way the scattered field is measured. It is more likely to be a good approximation for particles in dilute concentration that are small compared with the wavelength, and for experiments in which the beamwidth of the detector is narrow. The assumption of single scattering underlies the interpretation of most weather radar and wind profiler observations. For lidar, single scattering is said to occur when a transmitted photon experiences just one scattering event before returning to the receiver. Compare multiple scattering.
Industry:Weather
1. Foreign particulate matter in the atmosphere resulting from combustion processes; a type of lithometeor. When smoke is present, the disk of the sun at sunrise and sunset appears very red, and during the daytime has a reddish tinge. Smoke that has come a great distance from its source, such as from forest fires, usually has a light grayish or bluish color and is evenly distributed in the upper air. See smog, haze. 2. Applied to some types of fog. See sea smoke.
Industry:Weather
1. Generally, an extensive area of snow-covered ground or ice, relatively smooth and uniform in appearance and composition. This term is often used to describe such an area in otherwise coarse, mountainous, or glacial terrain. 2. In glaciology, a region of permanent snow cover, more specifically applied to the accumulation area of glaciers.
Industry:Weather
1. For any type of periodic motion (e.g., rotation, oscillation) a point or stage in the period to which the motion has advanced with respect to a given initial point. Specifically, the phase or phase angle is the angular measure along a simple harmonic wave, the linear distance of one wavelength being 360° of phase measure. This is often generalized by equating one cycle of any oscillation to 360°. See delay, interference, surface of constant phase. 2. The state of aggregation of a substance, for example, solid, liquid, or gas.
Industry:Weather
1. Fernlike ice crystals formed directly on a snow surface by deposition; a type of hoarfrost. 2. Hoarfrost that has grown primarily in two dimensions, as on a window or other smooth surface.
Industry:Weather
1. For air blowing toward an object such as the wall of a building, the point that marks the center of divergence of air along that wall as the streamlines split to flow around the building. The stagnation area corresponds to a relative maximum of static pressure. 2. During strongly statically stable conditions, the region just upstream of a mountain where the air is blocked by the mountain. This blocked flow could also contain a cavity of reverse flow. 3. An air pollution term for an anticyclonic region of subsidence and light winds that tends to trap pollutants near the ground where concentrations can become large.
Industry:Weather
1. Energy in the visible and near-visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum (0. 4–1. 0 μm in wavelength). 2. In meteorology, a term used loosely to distinguish radiation in the visible and near-visible portions of the electromagnetic spectrum (roughly 0. 4–4. 0 μm in wavelength), usually of solar origin, from that at longer wavelengths (longwave radiation), usually of terrestrial origin.
Industry:Weather
1. Atmospheric circulation features of cyclonic scale. Use of the term is usually reserved for distinguishing between the various dimensions of atmospheric circulation, that is, primary circulation, tertiary circulation. See'' also'' general circulation. 2. A circulation induced by the presence of a stronger circulation as a result of dynamical constraints. A frictional secondary flow is an example. 3. Organized flow superimposed on a larger-scale mean circulation. For example, roll vortices are a secondary circulation in the atmospheric boundary layer. They “fill” the boundary layer vertically, but have a width of only two to three times the boundary layer depth, while the mean wind profile extends over a much broader region.
Industry:Weather
1. Either of the two points on the sun's apparent annual path where it is displaced farthest, north or south, from the earth's equator, that is, a point of greatest deviation of the ecliptic from the celestial equator. The Tropic of Cancer (north) and Tropic of Capricorn (south) are defined as those parallels of latitude that lie directly beneath a solstice. 2. Popularly, the time at which the sun is farthest north or south; the “time of the solstice. ”
In the Northern Hemisphere the summer solstice falls on or about 21 June, and the winter solstice on or about 22 December. The reverse is true in southern latitudes. Compare equinox.
Industry:Weather
