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Types Source Regions Properties Ar Source

1. Air masses have different temperature and moisture properties depending on their source region, with the five main types being continental polar, maritime polar, continental tropical, maritime tropical, and continental arctic. 2. When different air masses meet, fronts form along the boundary between the air masses. The main types of fronts are cold fronts, warm fronts, stationary fronts, and occluded fronts. 3. Cold fronts form when a cold air mass overtakes a warm air mass, causing the warm air to rise and form clouds and potentially thunderstorms. Warm fronts occur when a warm air mass overtakes a cooler one, with a more gentle slope and wider area of precipitation.

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Nurfarahain Binti Masran
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77 views4 pages

Types Source Regions Properties Ar Source

1. Air masses have different temperature and moisture properties depending on their source region, with the five main types being continental polar, maritime polar, continental tropical, maritime tropical, and continental arctic. 2. When different air masses meet, fronts form along the boundary between the air masses. The main types of fronts are cold fronts, warm fronts, stationary fronts, and occluded fronts. 3. Cold fronts form when a cold air mass overtakes a warm air mass, causing the warm air to rise and form clouds and potentially thunderstorms. Warm fronts occur when a warm air mass overtakes a cooler one, with a more gentle slope and wider area of precipitation.

Uploaded by

Nurfarahain Binti Masran
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Air masses & fronts Air masses have 5 types:

AIR MASSES: TYPES SOURCE REGIONS PROPERTIES AR


 Large body of air with a uniform temperature and SOURCE
moisture content.
 Classified according to their source region. Continental Artic Highest latitudes of Extremely cold and
(cA) Asia, North very dry. Extremely
America, Greenland stable. Minimal
MOVEMENTS OF AIR MASSES: and Antarctica cloud cover.
 Differences of air pressure at different location create
wind patterns
 Air at EQUATOR = warm Continental Polar High-latitude Cold and dry. Very
 Warm air rises (cP) continental stable. Minimal
 Cold air rises interiors cloud cover.
 Cold air from the poles fills in below the rising warm air
 Generally, cold air moves from the poles to the equator
Maritime Polar High-latitude Cold, damp and
(mP) oceans cloudy. Somewhat
unstable

Continental Tropical Low-latitude Hot and dry. Very


(cT) deserts unstable

Maritime Tropical Subtropical oceans Warm and humid


(mT)
Formation of air masses
• The temperature pressure and moisture characteristics of the
atmosphere arise in large part from the continuous exchange of
energy and water vapour near the surface. When energy inputs
exceed losses, the temperature of the air increases. In the same way,
when moveevaporation than precipitation takes place, the moisture
content of the atmosphere increases. Because heat and water are not
uniformly distributed across the globe, the cooling and warming of
the atmosphere vary from place to place, as does the input water
vapour. Thus air over the tropical Pacific, for example, takes on
different characterictics from air over northern Canada.
Symbol of front
Fronts:
 When two air masses meet, they dont mix because of different densities
 A boundary forms between these two air masses called a FRONTS
 typical fronts are several hundred km long
There are four types front:
 Warm
 Cold
 Stationary
 occluded

Cold front
 A cold front is formed when a cold air mass overtakes a warm air mass.
 Cold fronts usually move from northwest to southeast.
 The warm air rises forming clouds
 Temperature changes along the boundary of the cold/warm air can be in
excess of 10°C
 If the cold front boundary is unstable, thunderstorms are more likely.

Warm front:
 Occurs when a warm air mass overtakes a cooler mass
 Less dense warm air rises over the cooler air
 The slope is very gentle
 Clouds may form far ahead of the fronts due to gentle slope
 Generally produces precipitation over a large area.
DRYLINES:
Drylines are areas where mT and cT air masses reside next to each
other.
Through the temperature on either side of the boundary may not
differ enough to create a front, the changes in water vapour
content across the drylines can be substantial.
The drylines forms as warm moist air advects nestward and meets
up with cT air moving in fronts the west or south -west.
Drylines tend to have greater temperature differences across their
boundaries during the day than at night.

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