Biz Kid$ Meteorologist Manual

KBIZ Television

Februrary 2020

BIZ KID$ TELEVISION SHOW Instructions for how to create the report

Table of Contents

Overview of the job 2-3

Temperature 4-5

Humidity 6

Wind Speed and Direction 7

Experiment on Air – in a Bottle 8-10

Clouds and Air Pressure 11-12

Air Pressure 13

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Overview of your Job:

What is Biz Kid$? Biz Kid$ is a PBS television show that began airing on WITF in January 2008. It is produced by the same team that did “Bill Nye the Science Guy.” KBIZ’s Biz Kid$ show is intended to mimic this style. The difference is we will focus on the JA BizTown community.

The show will include commercials for each business, some reporting on what is taking place in the community, some Biz Kid$ features from the real show, and your weather report.

What will your part of the show be about? You will have two “on air” segments. The first will be a weather report about today’s weather. The second will be a live demonstration about how air pressure changes create .

What is your job today? Your job today is to be the Meteorologist for JA BizTown and for KBIZ TV station. As the meteorologist, you will conduct a series of weather experiments, you will take and record weather measurements, and then prepare and complete an “on air” weather report.

What is the difference between a Weather Person and a Meteorologist? There is a difference between the titles "weatherman" and "meteorologist," and it is largely based on education and training.

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According to the American Society, a meteorologist " is a person working in the field of meteorology that has gained a sufficient amount of coursework in meteorology (without a B.S. degree, three years full-time experience is required).

Thanks to the training, a meteorologist is able to make a professional forecast based on computerized weather information and scientific analysis.

A "weatherman," on the other hand, primarily reads the weather forecast from the wire.

In JA BizTown ,you will be using scientific equipment to take weather measurement and then report on it. As such, you will not just be reading the weather report you will be a meteorologist for the day.

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Temperature

Temperature is defined as: "The degree of hotness or coldness of a body or environment"

Restated, temperature gives us a way to express our hotness or coldness in terms of numbers instead of subjective terms (cold or hot).

The normal variation of temperature with respect to a given day is shown by the following graph.

As you can see, temperature has a minimum in the morning hours and has a maximum in the early evening. This of course is based on the amount of sun that a given area receives during the day. During daytime hours the sun is shining and the temperature increases. But after the sun sets the temperature slowly starts to lower until the sun comes back up the next day. The magnitude of the highest and lowest temperature is based on the time of year. In the summer, high occur and in the winter low temperatures occur.

Temperature Fact

Lowest Recorded Temperature occurred on July 21, 1983 in Vostok, Antarctica. They had a low of -129°F!!!

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The average temperature during the year varies. The chart below shows the record high and low and the then average high and low per month for York, PA.

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Humidity

Humidity is the amount of in the air. Relative humidity is the ratio of the partial pressure of water vapor in a parcel of air to the saturated of water vapor at a prescribed temperature. Humidity may also be expressed as specific humidity. Relative humidity is an important metric used in forecasting weather. Humidity indicates the likelihood of , dew, or . High humidity makes people feel hotter outside in the summer because it reduces the effectiveness of sweating to cool the body by reducing the of perspiration from the skin. This effect is calculated in a table.

RELATIVE HUMIDITY

The ratio of the amount of moisture in the air at a specific temperature to the maximum amount that the air could hold at that temperature, expressed as a percentage.

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Wind Speed and

Wind Speed In meteorology, are referred to according to their strength, and the direction the wind is blowing from. Short bursts of high-speed wind are termed gusts. Strong winds of intermediate duration (around one minute) are termed squalls. Long- duration winds have various names associated with their average strength, such as breeze, , storm, hurricane, and typhoon.

Wind Direction Wind direction is the direction from which a wind originates. There are a variety of instruments used to measure wind direction, such as the windsock and wind vane. Modern instruments used to measure wind speed and direction are anemometers and wind vanes respectively.

Wind Chill Another dangerous combination is that of temperature and wind. The body keeps itself warm by having a warm layer of air surround the skin. This air is held in place by our hair or even our clothes, but if there is wind blowing across our skin then the warm air is constantly being striped away. This cools our body, which is good if it is summer, but if this is combined with low temperature then body could be cooled to dangerous levels. The National Weather Service also uses what is called a wind chill index. Here is the wind chill table:

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Experiment on Air Pressure – Creating a Cloud in a Bottle

Have you ever wondered how clouds form? Moist air rises in the atmosphere, cools, and water droplets form into clouds. Making your own cloud is a popular experiment in many science books, but it can be a little tricky. Sometimes the results are a little hard to see, but practice always makes perfect.

In this experiment, we are going to study the effect that air pressure has on the formation of clouds. We will be using a clear plastic bottle, a foot pump and rubbing alcohol. (We use rubbing alcohol instead of water because it evaporates quicker and makes the experiment more visible.)

Materials

 clear plastic bottle  Foot pump with rubber stopper attached  Rubbing alcohol  Safety glasses

Experiment Steps: (Step One)

1. Ask your Parent Volunteer to assist you with this experiment. 2. Both of you should put on your safety glasses. 3. Place a few drops of rubbing alcohol in the bottom of the bottle. 4. Swirl the alcohol around in the bottle, making sure to coat the sides. 5. Then put the rubber stopper in the bottle. 8

6. Have the Parent Volunteer hold the stopper while you pump the foot pump. 7. Start by pumping the foot pump four (4) times. You will notice that as you start to pump, the rubber stopper will want to pop right out. Hold it in the bottle tightly, being very careful not to let it fly out of the bottle. 8. After four pumps, stop pumping, wait a second and then pull the stopper out of the bottle. (Do not pump more than 4 times) 9. When you remove the rubber stopper, you should see a cloud.

How does it work?

Even though we don't see them, water molecules are in the air all around us. These airborne water molecules are called water vapor. When the molecules are bouncing around in the atmosphere, they don't normally stick together.

Pumping the bottle forces the molecules to squeeze together or compress. You are creating High Pressure. When you release the stopper this allows the air to escape which allows the air to expand, and in doing so, the temperature of the air becomes cooler. This cooling process allows the molecules to stick together - or condense - more easily, forming tiny droplets. Clouds are nothing more than groups of tiny water droplets!

The reason the rubbing alcohol forms a more visible cloud is because alcohol evaporates more quickly than water. Alcohol molecules have weaker bonds than water molecules, so they let go of each other more easily. Since there are more evaporated alcohol molecules in the bottle, there are also more molecules able to condense. This is why you can see the alcohol cloud more clearly than the water cloud.

Summary:

So when there is high pressure water molecules are compressed and when low pressure takes place the water molecules condense forming clouds. Low pressure causes cloud formation.

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Experiment Steps: (Step Two)

Now, let’s look at what happens to clouds when high pressure returns.

1. Ask one of your co-workers to assist you with this experiment. 2. Both of you should put on your safety glasses. 3. Place the rubber stopper back in the bottle with the cloud still visible. 4. Have your co-worker hold the stopper while you pump the foot pump. 5. Start by pumping the foot pump several times. You will notice that as you start to pump, the cloud will begin to disappear. By three pumps, the cloud should be completely gone. (Do not pump more than 4 times)

Summary:

When you add high-pressure back the water molecules return to their earlier state and the disappears.

6. Pull the stopper out of the bottle and the cloud will return.

Clouds on Earth form when warm air rises and its pressure reduced. The air expands and cools and clouds form as the temperature drops below the . Invisible particles in the air in the form of pollution, smoke, dust or even tiny particles of dirt help form a nucleus on which the water molecules can attach.

Remember high air pressure tends to make clouds go away and low pressure tends to create clouds. A low-pressure system brings rain and a high-pressure system causes the air to be clear.

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Clouds

Clouds are a visible collection of very fine water droplets or crystals suspended in the atmosphere, at altitudes from just above the ground to several miles above sea level. There are four basic types of clouds: Cumulus, Stratus, Cirrus and Cumulonimbus.

This low cloud with a typical base of below 7,000 feet is a cumulus cloud. These clouds have distinct edges, are usually white, puffy with a popcorn like appearance. They have a noticeable vertical development. Cumulus clouds can be seen isolated as in this picture or Cumulus grouped together is clusters. The cumulus cloud as all low clouds are most often composed of water droplets, but can have ice crystals in colder .

This stratus cloud is the lowest of the low clouds. They appear as a grey overcast deck, but can be scattered. Because the stratus cloud is low, it too has a base below 7,000 feet and is made of mostly water droplets. The individual stratus cloud has ill-defined edges compared to Stratus other low clouds.

The high altitude cirrus cloud like the one shown here have bases above 18,000 feet. They are mostly made of ice crystals and appear wispy, thin, and almost hair-like. Cirrus clouds generally occur in fair weather and point in the direction of air movement at their elevation. Cirrus

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The cumulonimbus cloud is the tallest of all clouds. They can span all cloud layers and extend to 60,000 feet. These clouds can produce , thunder, heavy rains, strong winds, and tornadoes. Cumulonimbus clouds usually have large anvil-shaped tops because of Cumulonimbus the stronger winds at those higher levels of the atmosphere.

Not only do clouds allow for precipitation, but they also affect the temperature.

Clear Cool Night: On a starry night, some of the heat released from the ground is in the form of infrared energy is absorbed by molecules of water vapor and gases, and radiate heat in all directions including back down to earth. However, mostly, the heat continues to rise into space.

Cloudy Warm Night: When it is a cloudy night, the same heat energy released to space reflects back to earth. This occurs because of the larger concentration of water droplets (clouds). Some heat energy released to space but much more returns back to earth.

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Air Pressure

High and Low Pressure Systems

A “high" is an area where the air's pressure is higher than the pressure of the surrounding air.

A "low' is where the air pressure is lower. Meteorologists don't have any particular number that divides high from low pressure; it's the relative differences that count.

The pressure is high at the surface where air is slowly descending - much too slowly to feel. This is going on over a large area, maybe a few hundred square miles. As air descends, it warms, which inhibits the formation of clouds. This is why high pressure is generally - but not quite always - associated with good weather.

The air that descends in high-pressure areas has to get to high altitudes in some way, and that way is by rising in areas where the pressure at the surface is low.

High : Low Atmospheric Pressure

o A blue "H" means a center of high pressure (usually calm, sunny weather). o A red "L" means low pressure (which can mean storminess). Most fronts extend from low-pressure centers.

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