Practical Exercises in Elementary MeteorologyWard, Robert DeCourcy
Science
Practical Exercises in Elementary Meteorology
Ward, Robert DeCourcy
Meteorology
Lines of pressure-decrease should be drawn on all isobaric charts studied
in the class, as they are highly instructive. When the isobars are near
together, these lines of pressure-decrease may be drawn heavier, to
indicate a steeper gradient. The convergence of these lines towards
regions of low pressure, and their divergence from regions of high
pressure, seen on every map on which these gradients are drawn, emphasizes
an important lesson. Before measuring rates of pressure-decrease by means
of a scale, considerable practice should be given in the study, by means
of the eye, of the rapidity or slowness of decrease of pressure, as shown
by the heavier or lighter lines of pressure-decrease. When the broad facts
of differing rates are comprehended, then the actual measurement of these
rates is a comparatively easy matter. In any case, however, an
appreciation of these rates of change is not always readily gained, even
by older scholars in the high school. It is, therefore, of prime
importance to proceed very slowly indeed at this point, and to have every
step fully understood before another step is taken.
The instructions in the text for measuring rates of pressure-decrease are,
that these rates shall be recorded as so many hundredths of an inch of
change of pressure in one latitude-degree. This is done for the sake of
simplicity. If this rate is expressed in hundredths of an inch of pressure
in a quarter of a latitude-degree of distance, the numerical value is the
same as if expressed in millimeters of pressure per latitude-degree of
distance.
CHAPTER VIII.
The fact of the prevalence of different kinds of weather over the country
at the same time is of great importance. It should be strongly emphasized
by the teacher in the course of the discussion of the maps of weather
distribution. Additional exercises of the same sort may be given to
advantage, by letting the class plot and study the weather signs taken
from any current weather map. Instructive lessons may be taught by talking
over, in the class, the different ways in which people all over the
country are affected by the character of the weather that happens to
prevail where they are.
CHAPTERS IX-XVIII.
The correlation exercises will, as a whole, teach few entirely new facts
to the brighter scholars who have faithfully completed the preceding work
in observations and in the construction and study of the daily weather
maps. These exercises do, however, lead to detailed examination and to the
careful working out of the relations which may have been previously
noticed in a general way only. They give the repeated illustration which
is necessary in order to impress firmly on the mind the lesson that the
weather map has to teach.
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