Week #12: Understanding local winds and causes One of the local winds we learned

Question

Week #12: Understanding local winds and causes

One of the local winds we learned in this module is land-sea breezes. You must have experienced that, during daytime, we feel onshore breeze while during nighttime, we feel offshore breeze. Based on what we have learned so far, and the description in the diagrams below, analyze why land-sea breezes change the directions between daytime and nighttime.

Hint: Difference between land and water in terms of heating capacity, and differences between cooler and warmer air in terms of density.

Explanation / Answer

during the day time sun light play the key role in temperature and pressure, land get warmer immediately during day time so the air above this surface also start to absorb heat from earth, as the temperature of air pincreases its density decreases and start to rise, air above the sea water is cooler because the specific heat of water is high and it will not get heat immediately, so the cooler dense air will flow towards low low pressure region on the land this is the reason for onshore wind during day time.

in the night time earth's surface cool little fast so the air bounded to it also cools, as the specific heat is high for water the heat gained during the day time will last for long time, so now the warmr air is above the sea water and start to rise due to less density, and more dense cooler air from land blows towards the sea known as offshore breaze.

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