Review and Unit Quiz

This unit presented the mesocale scale of motion, with these topics:

1. thermal circulations: wind patterns caused by differential heating, where cold air sinks and warm air rises
2. sea breezes: wind patterns formed by differential heating over a region where a large body of water and land meet
3. land breezes: wind patterns caused by a cool-air induced low pressure system over land and a relative high pressure system over water
4. mountain-valley breezes: wind patterns caused by warm air in a valley warming during the day and rising up a mountain slope (valley breeze) and that air cooling at night and sliding back down the mountain slope (mountain breeze)
5. mechanical circulations: wind patterns caused by the topography of an area
6. Santa Ana/Foehn (Chinook) winds: winds that blow down the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains
7. downslope (katabatic) winds: any wind that flows down the slope of a mountain; typically downslope winds have a higher magnitude than that of mountain breezes
8. heat island: urban heat islands (UHI) occur due to the fact that buildings absorb more of the sun's energy, and become warmer than rural areas, since there is less vegetation to cool the air by evaporation