- Industry: Weather
- Number of terms: 60695
- Number of blossaries: 0
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The American Meteorological Society promotes the development and dissemination of information and education on the atmospheric and related oceanic and hydrologic sciences and the advancement of their professional applications. Founded in 1919, AMS has a membership of more than 14,000 professionals, ...
A process in which a substance that can exist in two or more phases is converted from one phase to another. The most important meteorological examples are the evaporation, condensation, freezing, melting, deposition, and sublimation of water. See phase.
Industry:Weather
A problem in which an undetermined parameter is involved in the coefficients of a differential equation and in which the solution of the differential equation, with associated boundary conditions, exists only for certain discrete values of the parameter, called eigenvalues (or characteristic values, sometimes principal values). An important example of a physical problem that leads to a characteristic-value problem is the determination of the modes and frequencies of a vibrating system. In this case the dependent variable of the differential equation represents the displacements of the system and the parameter represents the frequencies of vibration.
Industry:Weather
A process of clouds, fog, or other obscurations becoming less prevalent with time.
Industry:Weather
A pore space in sediment (interstitial pore space) small enough for the occurrence of appreciable capillary rise.
Industry:Weather
A probe consisting of a stainless steel rod covered by a Teflon sheath set inside a cylindrical rainwater collector. The water surrounding the probe forms the outer plate of a coaxial-type capacitor while the metal rod forms the inner plate. The Teflon sheath serves as the dielectric. As the water height in the collector rises, the surface area of the capacitor increases, increasing the total capacitance. The total capacitance is measured and converted to an analog voltage directly proportional to the height of the water in the collector.
Industry:Weather
A point of intersection of a characteristic line with a contour line (or isobar) on a constant-pressure chart (or constant-height chart), for example, on a 500-mb chart, the intersection of the 5400-m contour line with a ridge line. A corresponding point is considered as a characteristic that reappears on successive charts. See singular corresponding point, principle of geometric association.
Industry:Weather
A polarization state of an electromagnetic signal in which the electric field vector at a point in space describes a circle. Relative to an observer looking in the direction of signal propagation, the electric fields of right and left circularly polarized signals rotate clockwise and counterclockwise, respectively.
Industry:Weather
A pole used in measuring surface water current, especially from an anchored vessel such as a lightship. The drift of the pole is timed as it is allowed to carry out a graduated line; the azimuth and speed of the line give the current velocity.
Industry:Weather
A periodic form of convection separated by stream surfaces across which there is little mixing of the fluid. In meteorology, the term is often used in reference to convection visualized by its modulation of clouds. See open cells, closed cells.
Industry:Weather
A physical or numerical framework for the prediction of cloud behavior. A physical model might be the behavior of a lighter or denser fluid blob (thermal) when released into a large environment. A theoretical model begins with the equations of fluid flow and derives solutions in terms of the growth of particles in a prescribed mixing environment.
Industry:Weather
