Ecosystems and Communities

Interactions

What organisms would live in this community? What are their interactions?

What is climate?

• What is the difference between weather and climate? • What is our weather like today?

What is the climate like in Hazleton? How do these things determine what organisms live in an area?• What other factors are there?

Climate• Climate is the average of year-to-

year temperatures and precipitation in an area. • Greenhouse effect- what is it? Is it

normal? How does man affect it?

Greenhouse effect

• Gases and water vapors trap the heat from the sun that reflects off the Earth. Without it, Earth would be very cold.

• What is the weather like on a very clear night? A foggy night?

• What effect does man have on Greenhouse gases? What can be done? Pair-share

Other effects on climate• What other things do you thing

affect climate?

Mountains

• Latitude-distance from the equator• Mountains- what difference would it

make what side of a mountain you lived on?• Height of a mountain.• Windward vs. wayward

Heat Transfer• How is heat transferred in the

atmosphere?• How is heat transferred in the

oceans?

Air in the atmosphere acts as a fluid. The sun's radiation strikes the ground, thus warming the rocks. As the rock's temperature rises due to conduction, heat energy is released into the atmosphere, forming a bubble of air which is warmer than the surrounding air. This bubble of air rises into the atmosphere. As it rises, the bubble cools with the heat contained in the bubble moving into the atmosphere.As the hot air mass rises, the air is replaced by the surrounding cooler, more dense air, what we feel as wind. These movements of air masses can be small in a certain region, such as local cumulus clouds, or large cycles in the troposphere, covering large sections of the earth. Convection currents are responsible for many weather patterns in the troposphere.

The ocean waters near the equator are heated directly by the sun's rays. Waters at the polesreceive less energy from the sun (they are tilted further away from the sun). Globes might be a helpfuldemonstration here. The heavier cold water at the poles sinks and flows along the bottom towards theequator as density currents. The warm surface waters at the equator move toward the poles in aconstant exchange. Of course, surface currents are also affected by winds.

Tolerance

• You see a Mocking-Bird in PA

These birds are normally found in the southern states? In terms of climate, why are you seeing the bird?