Ocean currents song
One for Higher atmosphere.


World Wind Patterns
Another for Higher atmosphere.


Layers of the atmosphere

Thunderstorms song to Psy’s Gangham style

Now this is an easy way to remember about thunderstorms.


Weather Fronts



Storm clouds


Tornado


Hurricanes and twisters


Tornado F scale

Senior revision with style

Ocean Gyres with a difference!

Desertification

Thanks to @richardallaway for this video.

Coriolis Effect

Just a little movie for later in the year for Higher.

Climate scientists warn of wild weather in the year ahead as El Niño starts

Drought, floods and other extreme events to increase. El Niño - "the child" in Spanish - was named by fishermen in Peru and Ecuador (South America) because the phenomenon arrives at Christmas there. It is part of a natural weather cycle that happens approximately every 3-7 years and affects weather across the world for a year. It is caused by changes in temperatures of the ocean, with the first sign being warming in the Pacific Ocean. El Niño is also strongly linked to droughts in Africa, Australia and Asia, and wetter-than-normal weather in other areas like USA. The last major El Niño in 1998 killed over 2,000 people and caused billions of dollars worth of damage to crops. 2009 has already been marked by an unusual weather patterns in SE Asia, and droughts and major floods in Australia, the US, China and Latin America. Read the rest of this Guardian article here. There is also a good Interactive way to learn about this phenomenon here.

Water Cycle Songs

Water Cycle Song
Really “cheesy” this one!

Water Cycle Rap

Groundwater Animation Song

Global warming – yes or no?

Global dimming
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming
Fossil fuel use, as well as producing greenhouse gases, creates other by-products. These by-products are also pollutants, such as sulphur dioxide, soot, and ash. These pollutants however, also change the properties of clouds.
Clouds are formed when water droplets are seeded by air-borne particles, such as pollen. Polluted air results in clouds with larger number of droplets than unpolluted clouds. This then makes those clouds more reflective. More of the sun’s heat and energy is therefore reflected back into space.
This reduction of heat reaching the earth is known as Global Dimming.
Impacts of global dimming: millions already killed by it?
Global warming results from the greenhouse effect caused by, amongst other things, excessive amounts of greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere from fossil fuel burning. It would seem then, that the other by-products which cause global dimming may be an ironic savior.
A deeper look at this, however, shows that unfortunately this is not the case.
Health and environmental effects
The pollutants that lead to global dimming also lead to various human and environmental problems, such as smog, respiratory problems, and acid rain.
The impacts of global dimming itself, however, can be devastating.
Global dimming can be dealt with by cleaning up emissions.
However, if global dimming problems are only addressed, then the effects of global warming will increase even more.
Horizon Video on this topic here. –beware folks it is 48 minutes long!
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2058273530743771382
If this is too long then here’s a shorter one

Climate change from the BBC
Good for the new additional section to Higher Geography on the impact of global warming this year.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/629/629/6528979.stm

Global warming - not about polar bears any more...

Great video here highlighted by Tony Cassidy. Thanks.
Wake Up, Freak Out - then Get a Grip from Leo Murray on Vimeo.

ITCZ movement

Great site here identified by the The Kingdown Geography Blog

Use the slider to see the dark blue rain pattern in Africa move north and south following the pattern of the sun's apparent movement in the sky. Higher will be doing this later in the year. turn on all the sections to see how the earth's atmosphere works. Nice site here too.

Atmosphere revision - Higher

A good site here to help you revise this difficult section. Remember there is a strong possibility of this coming up this year. See the site here.

Higher Physical NAB revision

2 good sites here useful for NAB revision and exam revision a little later.

Atmosphere Revision
ITCZ site http://www.metlink.org/data/review.php?ID=40
El Nino http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tao/elnino/el-nino-story.html

1 here for the Biosphere. We will be looking at this after Easter in the last section of the course.

Biosphere site Sands of Time
http://www.sandsoftime.hope.ac.uk/succession/index.htm

What happened to Global Warming?

Global temperatures are set to drop slightly this year according to the world's leading meteorologist. La Nina makes an impact. Interesting news item here from the BBC. Watch the video here. There is a definition of La Nina here to help you understand.

Higher, S grade revision

Some good animations here for revision of S grade river features. (Ignore all the rest S4 as your course is different. Highers / Int 2 - Look at the rivers and coast links and Higher only - use the Atmosphere links too. Plenty to keep you out of those Kirkmichael parties!

Link here

This one is good too although again a slightly different syllabus to ours.

A reminder also of S-cool here and the English GSCE Bitesize site as well as the Standard Grade and Higher Bitesize sites for Scotland. Use them all folks!

Higher Atmosphere Revision

Goos site here folks explaining a lot about this section. You need to spend some time reading these and understanding themand then try some past papers. We don't know if this will be a compulsory question this year or not. You can't afford to ignore it and now is the time to start.

Response to the great Global Warming Swindle

Two extreme viewpoints here and here. Good background reading for Higher and possible Issue topic for adv Higher. Some nice responses to the programme here.

Plastic in the sea

It is estimated that much of the plastic rubbish that fell into the sea 50 years ago is still there today, either floating in the huge circulating "gyres" of the Pacific or sitting on the seabed waiting to be gobbled up by a passing sea creature.
It is estimated that the amount of plastic we are consuming will continue to grow.
There is a massive area of circulating rubbish in the Pacific Ocean, stretching from the coast of California to Japan. Around 100 million tons of floating, mostly plastic, debris bobs just below the surface of the waters, covering an area twice the size of the continental United States. But modern plastics take hundreds of years to disintegrate.
As Mario Rodriguez of Greenpeace says: "We have to understand the sea is not a tip; it will constantly return to us what we throw in."
The solution should be obvious.
Find out the solution here.

China plans to halt rain for Olympics

Read the article here telling us what China intends doing to control the might of the weather. WOW!

ITCZ

Great site here to show this. Thanks to K O'Donnell, another geography blogger for this one. It is good to show the movement of this belt of rain and has climate graphs associated with these areas. He also highlights this one on global circulation. All good revision for those dreaded prelims.

Intertropical Convergence Zone

Near the equator, from about 5° north and 5° south, the northeast trade winds and southeast trade winds converge in a low pressure zone known as the Intertropical Convergence Zone or ITCZ. Solar heating in the region forces air to rise through convection which results in a plethora of precipitation. The ITCZ is a key component of the global circulation system. The location of the ITCZ varies throughout the year and while it remains near the equator, the ITCZ over land ventures farther north or south than the ITCZ over the oceans due to the variation in land temperatures. Read the rest here .