• Question: why does the weather change?

    Asked by chelgee to Sarah on 23 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Sarah Bardsley

      Sarah Bardsley answered on 23 Jun 2010:

      Ok – I’ve cheated a bit here and asked my boyfriend who studied weather at uni. Here’s his response for you:

      The earth is spinning on a tilted axis, and the so the sun heats up the earth in an uneven way, leading to temperature differences in our atmosphere.

      These temperature differences cause pressure differences and so air starts to move about. This combined with the spinning effect of the earth causes cyclones and anticyclones to appear – massive areas of slowly spinning air. These are known as areas of high or low pressure.

      As the air moves it takes up the characteristics of the ground beneath it, be they wet or dry, and takes those characteristics with it, bringing wet or dry weather. The cyclones and anticyclones move around the earth, getting stronger and dying away, bringing different weather characteristics with them.

      How did he do!?

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