How is physics used in meteorology

More broadly, meteorology is the study of the physics and chemistry of Earth's atmosphere, including its interactions with Earth's surface both land and water. In short, meteorologists want to completely understand how Earth's atmosphere works and often use that knowledge for future predictions. That means meteorologists need to know about the composition, structure, and air motions within the atmosphere.

In case it wasn't clear from the definition above, there's a lot of physics and chemistry in meteorology! If you were pursuing an undergraduate degree in meteorology, your course schedule would be filled with courses in calculus, differential equations, and calculus-based physics courses dynamics, thermodynamics, energy transfer, etc.

In this course, I'm going to do my best to spare you the gory details whenever I can so that you can walk away with a practical understanding of common weather events, and better consume the large variety of weather information available. Don't worry: there won't be any complex math just a little arithmetic here and there. How do meteorologists apply their knowledge of the atmosphere?

The list below provides some common applications of meteorology it's far from exhaustive, but it will give you an idea of the types of things meteorologists are involved in :.

As these massively destructive and costly events become more frequent, scientific evidence points to climate change as a leading cause.

While they can often be predicted, the loss of life and property take an emotional and economic toll on the community impacted. Explore these resources to teach your students about catastrophic weather events and how they impact every part of the world.

One of the first things you probably do every morning is look out the window to see what the weather is like. While weather refers to short-term changes in the atmosphere, climate refers to atmospheric changes over longer periods of time, usually 30 years or more.

Join our community of educators and receive the latest information on National Geographic's resources for you and your students. Skip to content. Image Weather Radar Truck Weather scientists travel around the world all year trying to learn more about storms and how to keep people safe.

Photograph by Ryan McGinnis. Twitter Facebook Pinterest Google Classroom. Encyclopedic Entry Vocabulary. Media Credits The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit.

Media If a media asset is downloadable, a download button appears in the corner of the media viewer. Text Text on this page is printable and can be used according to our Terms of Service. Interactives Any interactives on this page can only be played while you are visiting our website. Related Resources. Catastrophic Weather Events. View Collection. View Article. This journal has 51 open access articles.

View all articles. Journal updates Seeking new members for the Editorial Board. COVID and impact on peer review As a result of the significant disruption that is being caused by the COVID pandemic we are very aware that many researchers will have difficulty in meeting the timelines associated with our peer review process during normal times. For authors Submission guidelines. Fees and funding. Contact the journal.

Explore Volumes and issues. Electronic ISSN Print ISSN