Air Masses, Global Winds and Types of Rain

1. Most of Italy is affected by continental tropical air masses. Northern regions however have been known to have maritime polar air mass with snow in those regions.

2. Italy is affected mainly by westerlies and some trade winds, similar to areas in the mid-east US.

3. Italy is generally affected by frontal rainfall, due to the differences in temperature between the north and the south. The west part of Italy gets more rain than the east.

Weather and Climate Intro

1. The rays of radiation from our Sun, hitting the surface of the Earth.

2. Since the diagram shows the Earth on an angle, the equator regions are closer to the Sun, meaning the sun rays reach there sooner.

3. Albedo is solar energy refracted from the Earth back to space. A black roof would absorb more sunlight than a snow covered mountain.

4. The rate where atmospheric temperatures decrease where altitude increases.

5. Aspect is the compass direction that sloped surface faces. South side plants would grow better in the Northern Hemisphere.

6. We have seasons because the Earth rotates around the sun, the further away it is the colder it gets.

7. Land heats up faster than water as water reflects the solar radiation.

8. With no source of water, the land stays dry, lowering the amount of rainfall that area gets.

9. The climate in Norway becomes more temperate, as the Gulf Stream warms the country.

10. The Alaska current is the one that goes past BC.

11. Extra CO2 causes our planet to be warmer than it should, making global warming an issue.

12. Convection is the collective movement of groups of molecules in fluids, through diffusion, advection or both.

13. The natural movement of the air, blown in a predictable direction.

14. Urban heat islands are metropolitan areas warmer than the rural areas. This is caused by higher concentration of human activities in the metropolitan areas.

5 things Part B

Location

Absolute Location: 41° North Latitude and 12° East Longitude for Rome, Italy.

Relative Location: Rome is 8983 km away from our home in Surrey, BC.

Place

Human Characteristics: Italy has ancient roads, some of the oldest in history. Italy also has structures such as the Coliseum, the Roman Catholic Chruch and a few castles. Italy also has shopping centres in Milan and city on water, known as Venice. The language of Italy is Italian of course.

Physical Characteristics: Italy's mainland has physical features such as mountainous areas, lowlands in the heart of Italy and along the coast, grasslands and fine snowy hills in the northern regions.

Human-Environment Interaction

Depend: Italians depend on many different things. They depend on other countries for imports as well as exports, they depend on the Mediterranean Sea for food such as fish or crab. The city of Venice depends on gondolas as transportation through the Grand Canal.

Modify: Italians modified their environment by building roads, and farmland. They modified rivers with dams and dykes. They also negatively affected the environment as well, from emmisons from factories or endangering the wildlife.

Adapt: Italians adapted to their environment by not building cities close to active volcanoes, buying clothing jackets for the rain and warm homes for the cold. They also raised building standards in case of an earthquake.

Movement

Italy has used movement in many ways, such as moving exports like clothing for export. They used gondolas, buses and trains as means of transportation. Internet and magazines also were used to get info around.

Region

Italy has many regions such as Sicily off the coast and the areas in the north such as Abuzzo. Other Island areas such as Sardinia are also part of the Italian region.

4 spheres of the environment

On April 6, 2009, a magnitude 5.9 earthquake landed in the Abuzzo region of Italy. The centre of the quake was in the Abuzzo capital of L'Aquila, and other villages also received very significant damage from the earthquake and its aftershocks. About 308 people were killed and around 1500 were injured. 65,000 people were also left homeless, and had to go to homeless camps in the region and hotels around the Italian coastline. The total amount of damage caused was around 16 billion dollars. A major cause of casualties was the poor building standards in the region. Many sightings of light glows were seen prior, possibly as a warning to the coming of the earthquake.

The spheres involved in this geological event were the biosphere and the lithosphere respectively. The lithosphere was involved in the movement of The African Plate colliding with the Eurasian Plate, causing the earthquake and the aftershocks that hit the region. That earthquake affected the biosphere, which caused fatalities, damage to villages and homes, not to mention that many of the buildings in the region had existed since the medieval days.

Blog 1

1. 

2. Italy is located in Southern Europe.

3. The capital city of Italy is Rome.

4. Italy's size is 301,338 km².

5. The population of Italy is 61,070,224 people.

6. Italy has a unitary parliamentary republic, which means they have a president as a head of state.