Text book Unit 2

Weather:

The weather is the set of all extant phenomena in a given atmosphere at a given time. It also includes interactions with the hydrosphere. The term usually refers to the activity of these phenomena over short periods (hours or days), as opposed to the term climate, which refers to the average atmospheric conditions over longer periods of time. When used without qualification, "weather" is understood to be the weather of Earth.

Climate:

Climate is the average and variations of weather in a region over long periods of time. Climate zones can be defined using parameters such as temperature and rainfall. Paleoclimatology focuses on ancient climate information derived from sediment found in lake beds, ice cores, as well as various fauna and flora including tree rings and coral. Climae models can be used to determine the amount of climate change anticipated in the future.

Temperature:

Temperature is a physical property of a system that underlies the common notions of hot and cold; something that is hotter generally has the greater temperature. Temperature is one of the principal parameters of thermodynamics. On the microscopic scale, temperature is defined as the average energy of microscopic motions of a single particle in the system per degree of freedom. On the macroscopic scale, temperature is the unique physical property that determines the direction of heat flow between two objects placed in thermal contact. If no heat flow occurs, the two objects have the same temperature; otherwise heat flows from the hotter object to the colder object. These two basic principles are stated in the zeroth law and second law of thermodynamics, respectively. For a solid, these microscopic motions are principally the vibrations of its atoms about their sites in the solid. For an ideal monatomic gas, the microscopic motions are the translational motions of the constituent gas particles. For a multiatomic gas, vibrational and rotational motion should be included too.
Temperature is measured with thermometers that may be calibrated to a variety of temperature scales. In most of the world (except for the United States, Jamaica, and a few other countries), the Celsius scale is used for most temperature measuring purposes. The entire scientific world (the U.S. included) measures temperature using the Celsius scale and thermodynamic temperature using the kelvin scale, which is just the Celsius scale shifted downwards so that 0 K[1]= -273.15 °C, or absolute zero. Many engineering fields in the U.S., especially high-tech ones, also use the kelvin and Celsius scales. The bulk of the U.S. however, (its lay people, industry, popular meteorology, and government) relies upon the Fahrenheit scale. Other engineering fields in the U.S. also rely upon the Rankine scale (a shifted Fahrenheit scale) when working in thermodynamic-related disciplines such as combustion.

Wind:

Wind is the flow of air. More generally, it is the flow of the gases which compose an atmosphere; since wind is not unique to Earth.[1]. Simply it occurs as air is heated by the sun and thus rises. Cool air then rushes in to occupy the area the now hot air has moved from. It could be loosely classed as a convection current.
Winds are commonly classified by their spatial scale, their speed, the types of forces that cause them, the geographic regions in which they occur, or their effect.
There are global winds, such as the wind belts which exist between the atmospheric circulation cells. There are upper-level winds which typically include narrow belts of concentrated flow called jet streams. There are synoptic-scale winds that result from pressure differences in surface air masses in the middle latitudes, and there are winds that come about as a consequence of geographic features, such as the sea breezes on coastlines or canyon breezes near mountains. Mesoscale winds are those which act on a local scale, such as gust fronts. At the smallest scale are the microscale winds, which blow on a scale of only tens to hundreds of meters and are essentially unpredictable, such as dust devils and microbursts.
Forces which drive wind or affect it are the pressure gradient force, the Coriolis force, buoyancy forces, and friction forces. When a difference in pressure exists between two adjacent air masses, the air tends to flow from the region of high pressure to the region of low pressure. On a rotating planet, flows will be acted upon by the Coriolis force, in regions sufficiently far from the equator and sufficiently high above the surface.
The three major driving factors of large scale global winds are the differential heating between the equator and the poles (difference in absorption of solar energy between these climate zones), and the rotation of the planet.
Winds can shape landforms, via a variety of eolian processes.

Rainfall:

Rain is a type of precipitation, a product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapour that is deposited on the Earth's surface. It forms when separate drops of water fall to the Earth from clouds. Not all rain reaches the surface; some evaporates while falling through dry air. When none of it reaches the ground, it is called virga, a phenomenon often seen in hot, dry desert regions.

Hills,Ridges and mountains:

A hill is a landform that extends above the surrounding terrain, in a limited area. Hills often have a distinct summit, although in areas with scarp/dip topography a hill may refer to a particular section of scarp slope without a well-defined summit (e.g. Box Hill). A hillock is a small hill.

A ridge is a geological feature that features a continuous elevational crest for some distance. Ridges are usually termed hills or mountains as well, depending on size.A mountain is a landform that extends above the surrounding terrain in a limited area. A mountain is generally steeper than a hill, but there is no universally accepted standard definition for the height of a mountain or a hill although a mountain usually has an identifiable summit.

Mountains cover 54% of Asia, 36% of North America, 25% of Europe, 22% of South America, 17% of Australia, and 3% of Africa. As a whole, 24% of the Earth's land mass is mountainous. 10% of people live in mountainous regions. Most of the world's rivers are fed from mountain sources, and more than half of humanity depends on mountains for water.

Rivers, beaches and swamps:

A river is a natural waterway that transports water through a landscape from higher to lower elevations. A river is a component of the water cycle. The water within a river is generally collected from precipitation through surface runoff, groundwater recharge (as seen at baseflow conditions / during periods of lack of precipitation) and release of stored water in natural reservoirs, such as a glacier.
A beach, or strand, is a geological landform consisting of loose rock particles - such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, cobble - or even shell fragments, along the shoreline of a body of water. Beaches occur along coastal areas, where wave or current action deposits and reworks sediments, or at the margin of land along a lake or river subject to erosion caused by rainfall. Beaches are not necessarily found in conjunction with salt water, such as the ocean, in all instances. A seashore beach is merely one type of beach but it is the most commonly associated with the perception of the word "beach".A swamp is a wetland that features temporary or permanent inundation of large areas of land by shallow bodies of water, generally with a substantial number of hammocks, or dry-land protrusions, and covered by aquatic vegetation, or vegetation that tolerates periodical inundation.[1] The water of a swamp may be fresh water or salt water. A swamp is also generally defined as having no substantial peat deposits.[2]
In North America, swamps are usually regarded as including a large amount of woody vegetation, but elsewhere this may not necessarily apply, such as in African swamps dominated by papyrus. By contrast a marsh in North America is a wetland without woody vegetation, or elsewhere, a wetland without woody vegetation which is shallower and has less open water surface than a swamp. A mire (or quagmire) is a low-lying wetland of deep, soft soil or mud that sinks underfoot.