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Air masses cover many hundreds or thousands of square miles, and adapt to the characteristics of the surface below them. They are classified according to latitude and their continental or maritime source regions. Colder air masses are termed polar or arctic, while warmer air masses are deemed tropical.
Visualization of the ice and snow covering Earth's northern and southern polar regions Northern Hemisphere permafrost (permanently frozen ground) in purple. The polar regions, also called the frigid zones or polar zones, of Earth are Earth's polar ice caps, the regions of the planet that surround its geographical poles (the North and South Poles), lying within the polar circles.
The five main groups are A (tropical), B (arid), C (temperate), D (continental), and E (polar). Each group and subgroup is represented by a letter. All climates are assigned a main group (the first letter). All climates except for those in the E group are assigned a seasonal precipitation subgroup (the second letter).
A snowy landscape of Inari located in Lapland A polar bear with cub. On Earth, the only continent where the ice cap polar climate is predominant is Antarctica. All but a few isolated coastal areas on the island of Greenland also have the ice cap climate. Summits of many high mountains also have ice cap climate due to their high elevation.
Places with continental climates are as a rule either far from any moderating effect of oceans or are so situated that prevailing winds tend to head offshore. [6] Such regions get quite warm in the summer, achieving temperatures characteristic of tropical climates but are colder than any other climates of similar latitude in the winter.
The first letter describes its moisture properties, with c used for continental air masses (dry) and m for maritime air masses (moist). The second letter describes the thermal characteristic of its source region: T for tropical , P for polar , A for Arctic or Antarctic, M for monsoon , E for equatorial , and S for superior air (dry air formed ...
(cA is continental arctic; cP is continental polar; mP is maritime polar; cT is continental tropic; and mT is maritime tropic.) A weather front is a boundary separating two masses of air of different densities , and is the principal cause of meteorological phenomena .
The polar front arises as a result of cold polar air meeting warm tropical air. It is a stationary front as the air masses are not moving against each other and stays stable. [2] Off the coast of eastern North America, especially in winter, there is a sharp temperature gradient between the snow-covered land and the warm offshore currents.