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The Earth's weather is a consequence of its illumination by the Sun and the laws of thermodynamics. The atmospheric circulation can be viewed as a heat engine driven by the Sun's energy and whose energy sink , ultimately, is the blackness of space.
Weather is the state of the atmosphere, describing for example the degree to which it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloudy. [1] On Earth, most weather phenomena occur in the lowest layer of the planet's atmosphere, the troposphere, [2] [3] just below the stratosphere.
Low-pressure systems form under areas of wind divergence that occur in the upper levels of the atmosphere (aloft). The formation process of a low-pressure area is known as cyclogenesis . In meteorology , atmospheric divergence aloft occurs in two kinds of places:
The five components of the climate system all interact. They are the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the cryosphere, the lithosphere and the biosphere. [1]: 1451 Earth's climate system is a complex system with five interacting components: the atmosphere (air), the hydrosphere (water), the cryosphere (ice and permafrost), the lithosphere (earth's upper rocky layer) and the biosphere (living things).
A surface weather analysis is a type of weather map that depicts positions for high- and low-pressure areas, as well as various types of synoptic scale systems such as frontal zones. Isotherms can be drawn on these maps, which are lines of equal temperature. Isotherms are drawn normally as solid lines at a preferred temperature interval. [23]
Usually, within the lower atmosphere (the troposphere) the air near the surface of the Earth is warmer than the air above it, largely because the atmosphere is heated from below as solar radiation warms the Earth's surface, which in turn then warms the layer of the atmosphere directly above it, e.g., by thermals (convective heat transfer). [3]
Diagram showing the daily changes to the capping inversion on top of Earth's planetary boundary layer. A capping inversion is an elevated inversion layer that caps a convective planetary boundary layer. The boundary layer is the part of the atmosphere which is closest to the ground.
A surface weather analysis for the United States on 21 October 2006. High pressure areas are labeled "H". High-pressure areas form due to downward motion through the troposphere, the atmospheric layer where weather occurs. Preferred areas within a synoptic flow pattern in higher levels of the troposphere are beneath the western side of troughs.