Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Clouds and Fogs of France.


             

  
I enjoy this picture because not only does it illuminate the Canal du Midi in Béziers, it also shows what I think are
nimbostratus clouds because they look as if they could bring rain. However, they are somewhat vertical in shape which would lead me to speculate that they are cumulus clouds.

This is the Cathedral Saint-Nazaire of Béziers in Languedoc.
 This picture shows a breath taking sunset that I am sure the French are captivated by! The colors in the sky are made by the scattering of light as it hits various particles in the air.

    There are three kinds of fog:  advection, radiation, and valley fog. The first needs both westerly winds and a cold current to make it possible. It can be very dangerous for drivers because sometimes it can be very thick. Radiation fog happens when the ground, which is chilled by long-wave radiation, chills the air by means of conduction until the dew point is reached. And lastly, we get valley fog from cold air draining down from surrounding mountains.
     As soon as the temperature on the ground matches the temperature in the air, the fog will dissipate because the moisture has been evened out.


The Sèvre Niortaise River in France demonstrates a wonderful fog just over the water!
The picture portrays clear and blue skies and it appears as if there is little wind.
This would lead me to believe it is radiation fog, but it is not
over the ground. Therefore, this fog which is possibly
moving inland, could be advection fog.

     In terms of pressure variations, there are two kinds:  thermal and dynamic. Warm air converges and rises, then it diverges, cools, and drops. As the third law of geography states air always flows from high to low pressure, which gives us our diurnal flows.

    
I really enjoyed learning about Earth’s natural radiation balance. 
This fresh and glowing powder must have a very high albedo!

      Albedo is the insulation that is reflected. Therefore it would make sense that dark colors have a low albedo, whereas light colors like white, fresh snow have a high albedo. This is because the fresh snow reflects almost all the light it receives.

1 comment:

  1. While I agree the French countryside is very beautiful, some of your sentences are phrased in a way that they lose impact. They start getting a little fluffy.

    EX:"I enjoy this picture because not only does it illuminate the Canal du Midi in Béziers, it also shows what I think are nimbostratus clouds because they look as if they could bring rain. However, they are somewhat vertical in shape which would lead me to speculate that they are cumulus clouds."

    It would be stronger if you had said, "The cumulus clouds above the Canal du Midi elegantly illuminate the French landscape."

    All in all, nice blog post. You connected albedo to the mountain-scape very nicely. I checked out some of the other pictures from your previous blog posts. The curvy highway bridge looks like something from Modern Marvels.

    ReplyDelete