Textbook (requires Acrobat Reader)

Part I - Describing the Atmosphere

• Physical Constants (from NIST)
• Web Elements and Periodic Table Live
• Atomic mass info:
  • From Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (gives atomic mass and binding energies of each isotope)
  • From National Institute of Standards and Technology (gives relative abundances, atomic weights and atomic masses)
• For more information, see introduction to JetStream, the online school for weather (National Weather Service)

• Sea-level pressure (source: DataStreme)
• Surface temperature (source: DataStreme)
• Skew-T Log-P for Albany
• U.S. Standard Atmosphere
• MetEd (meteorology training from UCAR) has a module on Skew-T mastery, which shows many of the things mentioned in this course.

• 1000-500 mb Thickness (source: Unisys)
• Heights, temperatures and winds at 500 mb (source: Unisys)

Part II - Temperature

• current and yesterday's pressures and temperatures at 6000 ft (source: Unisys)
• current and yesterday's heights and temperatures at 850 mb (source: Unisys)
• 00 Z and 12 Z surface maps (source: DataStreme)

• Skew-T plots archive (source: U. Wyoming)
• Blank Skew-T Log-P diagram (source: U. Cal/San Diego)

• The Weather Underground
• Saturation vapor pressure (in kPa)
• History of the Cloud Chamber
• Video of supercooled water freezing (note how much of it freezes)

Radiation

• Venus Fact Sheet (from NASA)
• Solar Fact Sheet (from NASA)
• Solar Irradiance (from NOAA)
• Solar Spectral Irradiance (from Wikipedia/Global Warming Art)
• Earth's Radiation Budget (from NASA)
• Zero and Single-Layer Models of the Atmosphere (from NASA; similar to Figure 10.3 from the text)
• Global Warming simulation
• Black Body Simulator (provides distribution of frequencies for a given black body temperature, indicating the different colors that make up the spectrum along with the actual appearance of the object)
• Greenhouse simulation
• Pictures of the sun from various days in the year
• Alternate viewpoint of global warming (can you evaluate whether it is valid or not?)

Part III - Motion

• Surface temperature, convergence and wind (convergence is the white/gray hatching) (source: Unisys)
• 700-mb vertical velocity (source: Unisys)
• 6-hour precipitation (source: Unisys)
• Observed precipitation (source: National Weather Service)

• Surface map with wind and pressure (source: Unisys)
• Wind and pressure at 18,000 ft (source: Unisys)
• surface station models (source: South African Weather Bureau)
• Wind and pressure at 18,000 ft (source: Unisys)
• Heights, temperatures and winds at 500 mb (source: Unisys)
• Heights, temperatures and winds at 300 mb (source: Unisys)

Surface Maps

For help in interpreting isopleths, look at the Build a Landscape demo for topographic maps.

• Isobars of Estimated Sea-Level Pressure (U.S. observations; updated hourly) with:
  • data values at surface sites (source: DataStreme) or
  • wind barbs at grid points (source: UCAR from the Rapid Update Cycle model analysis)
  • thickness (dotted line) and precipitation (at color) (source: Unisys from NCEP's Eta Model)
• Archives of surface maps
  • The Weather Channel
  • Unisys
  • Hydrometeorological Prediction Center (one-day archive; every three hours)
  • DataStreme (one-day archive; every twelve hours)
• Isobars of Estimated Sea-Level Pressure (Southern Hemisphere observations; updated every twelve hours) with:
  • surface station models (source: South African Weather Bureau)
• Iostherms of Surface Temperature (U.S. Observations; updated hourly) with:
  • data values at surface sites (source: DataStreme) or
  • isotherms only (with color) (source: UCAR from the Rapid Update Cycle model analysis)

Upper-level Constant-Height Maps (U.S.; updated every twelve hours)

• Isotherms at 18,000 ft (about 5.5 km) with:
  • sounding station models (source: Unisys)
• Isotherms at 30,000 ft (about 9 km) with:
  • sounding station models (source: Unisys)

Upper-level Constant-Pressure Maps (U.S.; updated every twelve hours)

• Convergence at 1000 mb (gray shading) with:
  • temperature (color shading) and wind vectors (at grid points) (source: Unisys from NCEP's Eta Model)
• Vertical Velocity at 700 mb (color shading) with:
  • heights (dark black lines) and wind vectors (at grid points) (source: Unisys from NCEP's Eta Model)
• Data at 500 mb with:
  • sounding station models only (source: UCAR)
  • isoheights, isotherms and sounding station models (source: DataStreme)
  • isoheights, isotherms and sounding station models (source: Unisys)
  • isoheights and absolute vorticity (shading) (source: UCAR from NCEP's ETA model)
  • isoheights, absolute vorticity (shading) and wind arrows (source: Unisys from NCEP's NGM model)
• Isoheights at 300 mb with:
  • isotachs (dashed lines) and sounding station models (source: DataStreme)
  • sounding station models (source: UCAR)
  • wind vectors (on grid) and isotachs (shaded) (source: UCAR from the ETA model)
• Isoheights of 1000-500 mb Thickness with:
  • isoheight shading (source: Unisys)

Relevant Data

• Individual Surface Weather Observations
  • The Weather Channel
  • The Weather Underground
  • Archive of Hourly Pennsylvania Surface Observations (Mount Pocono) from the PA State Climatologist.
  • NOWcoast (also provides overlays of radar, satellite, etc.)
• Vertical Structure
  • U.S. Standard Atmosphere
  • Skew-T Log-P for Albany
• Satellite Data
  • Solar Irradiance (from NOAA)
  • Solar Spectral Irradiance (from NASA)
  • Satellite maps (from UCAR)
  • Full disk with satellite winds (from NOAA; shows evidence of Hadley cell)
  • Full disk IR (from NOAA; shows evidence of ITCZ)
  • Ozone Data (from NASA; Goddard Space Flight Center)
  • Complete list from NASA (Marshall Space Flight Center)
  • Complete list from NASA (GOES)
  • Rare South Atlantic Hurricane; compare with a North Atlantic Hurricane (Mitch); both from NOAA (NESDIS)
• Good data sources
  • DataStreme (surface, radar, satellite, upper-air, forecasts, etc.)
  • Eye Wall/Penn State (model forecasts)
  • UCAR Real-Time Weather Data (satellite, surface, radar, upper-air, model forecasts, etc.)
  • Unisys Weather (satellite, surface, radar, upper-air, model forecasts, etc.)
  • The Weather Underground
• Other Information
  • Material from MIT's Physics of Atmospheres and Oceans course vapor_curve.xls">Saturation vapor pressure (in kPa)
  • Saturation vapor pressure (in kPa)
  • Venus Fact Sheet (from NASA)
  • Solar Fact Sheet (from NASA)
  • The WebElements periodic table (others are also available but this one is pretty nice)
  • The Earth Science World ImageBank has lots of images of weather and other earth science phenomena
  • Archive of METAR data (for the month; Florida State Univ)
  • Surface Data Archive (Plymouth State University)
  • The Crush the Can demo with a railroad tank car
  • The Annual World Energy Consumption
  • Atmospheric Optics
  • A video loop of Hurricane Katrina not only shows the development of the storm but also the diurnal heating over Florida.
  • Time-Lapse Pictures of Atmospheric Phenomena
  • Topozone (topographic maps; 1000 ft difference between Cherry Valley and top of Minsi Ridge)
  • Simulation showing difference between sidereal and synodic months
  • Analemma over New Jersey (movie showing the location of the sun at the same time every day over the course of a year; NASA)

Other Interesting Sites

• Interactive Isotherm Drawing practice (from METEO101 at Penn State)

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  Last updated: October, 2009.
  Visitor Number 12728 since 1/22/98

  This page maintained by:
  rcohen@po-box.esu.edu