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Atmospheric convection is the vertical transport of heat and moisture in the atmosphere.It occurs when warmer, less dense air rises, while cooler, denser air sinks. This process is driven by parcel-environment instability, meaning that a "parcel" of air is warmer and less dense than the surrounding environment at the same altitude.
Convection is also seen in the rising plume of hot air from fire, plate tectonics, oceanic currents (thermohaline circulation) and sea-wind formation (where upward convection is also modified by Coriolis forces). In engineering applications, convection is commonly visualized in the formation of microstructures during the cooling of molten ...
Forced convection: when a fluid is forced to flow over the surface by an internal source such as fans, by stirring, and pumps, creating an artificially induced convection current. [ 3 ] In many real-life applications (e.g. heat losses at solar central receivers or cooling of photovoltaic panels), natural and forced convection occur at the same ...
The polar cell is a simple system with strong convection drivers. Though cool and dry relative to equatorial air, the air masses at the 60th parallel are still sufficiently warm and moist to undergo convection and drive a thermal loop. At the 60th parallel, the air rises to the tropopause (about 8 km at this latitude) and moves poleward.
The Earth's magnetic field is believed to be generated by electric currents in the conductive iron alloys of its core, created by convection currents due to heat escaping from the core. A schematic illustrating the relationship between motion of conducting fluid, organized into rolls by the Coriolis force, and the magnetic field the motion ...
The acronym GCM originally stood for General Circulation Model.Recently, a second meaning came into use, namely Global Climate Model.While these do not refer to the same thing, General Circulation Models are typically the tools used for modeling climate, and hence the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably.
Convection causes it to rise, causing a valley breeze. At night, the process is reversed. During the night the slopes get cooled and the dense air descends into the valley as the mountain wind. [4] These breezes occur mostly during calm and clear weather. Mountain and valley breezes are other examples of local winds caused by an area's geography.
Mesoscale convective systems are thunderstorm regions which may be round or linear in shape, on the order of 100 kilometres (62 mi) or more across in one direction but smaller than extratropical cyclones, [2] and include systems such as tropical cyclones, squall lines, and mesoscale convective complexes (MCCs), among others.