Thomas P. Albright Laboratory for Conservation Biogeography Department of Geography
Geography 3A Introduction to Physical Geography ... - UCSB › ~siegel › GEOG3A ›...
Transcript of Geography 3A Introduction to Physical Geography ... - UCSB › ~siegel › GEOG3A ›...
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Dr. Dave Siegel, Instructor
Tony Marca, Teaching AssistantJory Hecht, Teaching Assistant
Tony Boughman, Teaching Assistant
Dr. Dave Siegel, Instructor
Tony Marca, Teaching AssistantJory Hecht, Teaching Assistant
Tony Boughman, Teaching Assistant
Geography 3AIntroduction to Physical
GeographyOceanic and Atmospheric
Processes
Geography 3AIntroduction to Physical
GeographyOceanic and Atmospheric
ProcessesImage Credit: NASA Earth ObservatoryImage Credit: NASA Earth Observatory
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Course syllabus
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Course syllabus
discussion/lab sections meet this week!
new and used copies are available at the UCSB bookstore
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Text/course overviewwhat we’ll
cover in this
course
covered in Geog
3B
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What is physical geography?
physical geography encompasses elements of many disciplines, including climatology, meteorology, oceanography, geomorphology (study of landforms), soil science, biogeography and ecology (distribution and ecology of life), hydrology, and natural resources
physical geography is “the spatial analysis of the physical elements and processes that make up the environment: energy, air, water, weather, climate,
landforms, soils, animals, plants, microorganisms, and Earth itself”
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Some of the stuff you will learn in this course
why the sky is blue and sunsets are red
why cloudy days are so bright
why Santa Barbara has such a mellow climate, and Minneapolis has such an intense climate
why we have seasons on Earth
how to understand climate change (’global warming’)
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Chapter 1: some basics of geography
latitude, longituderemote sensing
GIS
also covered in the text: GPS, map projections, systems concepts
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a note on metric to English conversions
Appendix C in the text
common examples
~1.6 km/mile (~0.6 miles/km)
~2.2 lbs/kgDegrees Celsius (C) to Degrees Fahrenheit (F)
C*1.8 + 32 = F
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Latitude and parallelseach parallel
inscribes a circle
notice how each parallel gets smaller away
from the equator
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Important latitudinal zones
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Longitude and meridians
notice how lines of longitude converge at the poles
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Circles great and small
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Do all parallels form great circles? How about all meridians?
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Latitude and Longitude
some useful facts:1. each point on earth rotates at the rate of 15
degrees/hour (360 degrees/24 hours)2. each degree of latitude is 111 km (69 miles) -
this is also true along the equator3. a minute of latitude is one nautical mile
what is the lat. and lon. of UCSB?
34.42 N119.70 W
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length of a degree of longitude
lon=cosine(lat)*111 km
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Figure 1.12
Determining latitude
the angle between the north star
(Polaris) and the horizon gives your
latitude
of course, you can also use the sun’s angle and a
table to determine your latitude
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Determining longitude - much harder!
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/shackleton/navigate/images/inding_longitude.gif
rotates at 15 degrees/hour
(360 degrees/24 hours)
the key is having a
very accurate
clock on the ship that
keeps time at the prime
meridian
this problem greatly affected exploration, shipping, and commerce and caused many shipwrecks
3pm at PM12pm at location
see Focus study 1.2
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Remote Sensing and Physical Geography
‘remote sensing’ simply means collecting information about distant objectssome examples.....
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credit: http://eos.nasda.go.jp/image/remosens_e.jpg
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Credit: http://www.icrse.orgsee also terra.nasa.gov
NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites
this satellite platform has 5 separate instruments
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Credit: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/Images/3DGlobeEOS.jpg
image created from 5 remote sensing
data sets
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Credit: http://www.state.ny.us/ltgovdoc/images/gis.gif
Geographic Information Systems and Physical Geography
what to do with the gigabytes of data streaming down to Earth from the satellites?
GIS provides a framework for
collecting, sorting, and analysing such data in a geographic
way
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Final announcementsyou will have lab/discussion sections THIS week
questions?
please read chapters 1-2 in the text
we will briefly cover time zones & map projections, as these topics will be the focus of lab 1