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Edexcel B - Weather and Climate

Jus wondering if there is anyone else who struggles with this module and could share any revision notes or website with me. I have got the heinemann revision guide for the exam board but still dont feel happy with it!

Any help would be much appriciated!

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Reply 1

ems33

i struggle with it too!
especially the ITCZ and air stream thingys...im destined to fail :redface:

Reply 2

Mads

i know its a nightmare, well the heinman book is ok as r the phillip allan guides if ya can get one from his website. i just cant get it to go in at all. i'm studying the same as you apart from did drama at AS and i wanna go kent, to do law!

Reply 3

-doll

hey people!! lol, i find the other area (population and the economy) harder, so lets swap!! hehe. i'll try and hlep ya with this area, and could you hlep me with mine?? (i set up a thread). awesome. :smile:

erm, i have some useful books, i'll post detail up later. ones our textbook, and the others are revision guides. i guess to start with, think of the ITCZ as kinda separate from the cells and jet streams, and other air masses that affect the UK. think of them separately, even though i guess they are all linked up there in the sky. but when writing essay i tackle them in different paragraphs and the teachers seem to like it!! :cool:

>>kk, so the ITCZ: [this is actually the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone where the northeasterly and southeasterly tradewinds converge/ meet together] but we need to know that it moves/ migrates. It is usually located between 10o N and S of the equator but migrates. This causes wet and dry seasons in countries located in the tropics.
>>Presence of the ITCZ: The suns rays heat the land and air. This is thermal heating. This causes the air to rise so convectional rainfall falls on the land below.
>>Absence of the ITCZ (in the other area therefore): lack of the heating of air means no convecional rainfall. therefore a dry season occurs. if the ITCZ stays in the other area for so long (ie years, which has happened) a drought may occur.

Reply 4

-doll

cells

notice the 3 types of cell: the hadley cell, ferrel cell, and polar cell.

the jet streams and wind belts are basically guided by these convection cells.

below are jet streams in the northern hemisphere...

Reply 5

-doll

air masses for UK

there are 5 types:
1. polar maritime - from NW - cool +wet
2. polar continental - from NE - cold + dry
3. tropical maritime - from SE - warm + wet
4. tropical continental - from SW - warm + dry
5. arctic - from N - cold + dry

BASICALLY, if its from martime its WET, continental its DRY. this is becuase the air would pick up moisture as it travels over the sea.

this is a good site i think... http://www.met-office.gov.uk/education/secondary/students/airmasses.html especially the summing up table at the bottom of the page. =D

Reply 6

x_ejh_x

Does the ITCZ migrate because of the tilt of the Earth?

Reply 7

toto8462

x_ejh_x

Does the ITCZ migrate because of the tilt of the Earth?

Sort of. The ITCZ migrates following the heat equator. The earth rotates on its axis in such a way that the sun is concentrated 23.5 degrees north of the equator and 23.5 degrees south of the equator at different times of the year. The heat equator is the point where the sunlight is concentrated most directly on the earth (thus greatest heating effect). The ITCZ is tends to be just a little behind the heat equator.

Hope this helps.

Reply 8

_poptart_

http://revision.miss-brightside.com/weatherclimate.doc here are my weather and climate notes I typed up for my exam when I did it last year. Go the main site http://revision.miss-brightside.com to see the other notes Ive got, for grassland, globalisation etc.

Reply 9

-doll

erm, i dont know how much we have to worry about the heat equator. not sure. but in case, the heat equator = a belt encircling the Earth, defined by the set of locations having the highest mean annual temperature at each longitude around the globe. [wiki]

i found this website, which does go into more detail than we need, but i quite liked some of the diagrams... so here you are: http://www.newmediastudio.org/DataDiscovery/Hurr_ED_Center/Stages_of_Hurricane_Dev/ITCZ/ITCZ.html

This diagram shows the seasonal meandering of the ITCZ...

Reply 10

-doll

formation of a depression....

and how it looks from space...

they may indeed chuck in a weather map and ask us to interpret it... erm something like this, but for the whole of the UK

Reply 11

-doll

SOMETHING I GET STUCK ON IS QUESTIONS ABOUT ECOCLINES...arghh, what?? why?? how?? im not sure bout these myself.

oh, and geogger, what did ya mean by "...Seasonality esp in relation to impact on vegetation" exactly?? just wondering cos im not sure i have notes in this. eeekk. is this a big topic?

thanks xxx

Reply 12

_poptart_

I chose a question about ecoclines in last year's exam, and basically talked my way through how the vegetion varies away from the equator and WHY. So then that gives you a chance to talk about the ITCZ and how the varying seasons of rainfall etc or the temperature variations affect what vegetation is grown. I think thats righ anyway!

Reply 13

-doll

and anyway ecoclines came up last summer as poptart said so they won't come up again in the same format.

true, true. but then again, what other format could they ask em in?? probs they wont ask bout them. soo, another issue i thouht of, that im not so hot with, is BIOMES!! on the syllabus you know we can chose either forests/coral reefs/ something else. my school is doing forests.

...but the problem is, when they ask questions in exams i dont know if they want u to talk about ALL the forests ALL over the WORLD, or or or a CERTAIN type of forest and where it occurs globally. Basically - what is a biome? is a tropical rainforest a biome? :confused:

or are all types of forest part of a biome, and coral reefs for example are another type of biome?! :frown:

argh, ive found varying defintions and nobody seems to know!! :eek:

and the different ways they word questions, i just dont get which of the above 2 ways im supposed to talk about them!! plz HELP!!

:suith:

thankees.

Reply 14

toto8462

bananaboater

or are all types of forest part of a biome, and coral reefs for example are another type of biome?! :frown:

argh, ive found varying defintions and nobody seems to know!! :eek:

and the different ways they word questions, i just dont get which of the above 2 ways im supposed to talk about them!! plz HELP!!

:suith:

thankees.

A biome is simply the entire community of living organisms in one major ecological area/location. On this premise, both the tropical rainforest and coral reefs are biomes, they are just seperate biomes from each other. The ecology of the area must be similar for it to remain the same biome, thus land and sea should be seperated! Hope this helps.

Reply 15

Lynnie

i am so confused,my geography teacher for physical is awful therefore, im crapping myself. For the exam i get that one section is weather/climate and all that confusing rubbish, then another is ecosystems i.e. forest/coastal etc is there really a 3rd section on conservation. Because, none of our class have a clue and people keep saying there are 3

Reply 16

x_ejh_x

The 3rd section is cross modular, in the past questions have been on things like ecological footprint, variations in GNP... This section is worth more too, 30 marks for this while it's 25 each for the other two. I hated this part in Jan! x

Reply 17

blondemoment

i just think of biome as another word for ecosystem.

has anyone else taken this exam early in Jan and doing it again in June?

My whole problem is writing 6 bloomin' essays with about 15mins for each! any help in this dept?