Atmospheric Sciences - Supercooling

ATOC homework 2

Conner Tidd – 260466694

Collaborated with: George Surilas

1 a. Indoor air in cold climates tends to be very dry (lacking in specific humidity) because we take the cold air from outside which is lacking in moisture due to the frigid temperatures and heat it up without adding any moisture that would naturally be there. The indoor air is not more or less dry by setting the thermostat higher though it has the capacity to hold more liquid as it heats up.

b. Humans experience more discomfort in humidity because the body naturally sweats and in humid conditions the body is less capable of getting rid of the sweat as the air is already liquid heavy and the sweat doesn’t evaporate as quickly leading to less cooling and more discomfort.

c. Because water boils at a lower temperature at higher elevations due to the lower atmospheric pressure you need to cook items like pasta for longer since the boiling water is actually cooler than you would expect at a normal altitude.

2 a. The saturation specific humidity is 10 (g/kg)

b. The global-mean relative humidity at the surface is 100% by H=q/qs = 100 where Qq is 0.010kg/kg and qs is 0.010 kg/kg. This is not consistent with the figures in the lecture.

c. If the earth warmed by 4 degrees celcius this would be an increase of 30% 10g/kg to 13 g/kg

3 a. They have similar insolation because they both happen approximately one month after the fall and spring equinox’s meaning that the sun is in a similar position relative to the earths tilt at both these times resulting in similar levels of insolation.

b. This can be accounted for in that in October we in the North are coming out of the summer and as such much of the land and water has absorbed heat as the land and oceans are a heat sink and as the temperature cools some residual heat will be released from the land and the water increasing the temperatures. The opposite happens in the winter with residual cold temperatures being released.

c. The variation is better explained by the geography at these latitudes. 55 degrees north has a lot of land which reacts much more to different levels of insolation and changes in heat whereas 55 degrees south is nearly all ocean which absorbs and loses heat much slower and as such has less variance in average temperature.