Meteorology Essay On The Atmosphere

Ever wonder what the atmosphere consists of? What's it made out of, what type of weather patterns are there, what does a hurricane look like, or other natural phenomenon's of today's weather ? Well America, hopefully now we can! Meteorology is the study of the atmosphere and the effects it has on our weather. Climatology focuses on how atmospheric changes alter the world’s climates, aeronomy is the study of the upper parts of the atmosphere. Meteorology focuses on the lower parts of the atmosphere, primarily the troposphere, where most weather takes place. It has been released that under the supervision of NASA, President Dwight D Eisenhower and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) that they have launched a satellite called TIROS 1 out of Cape Canaveral, Florida that will observe, record, and transmit data back to headquarters. The first ever weather satellite has arrived and with much hope will change weather prediction for the future.

TIROS stands for Television Infrared Observation Satellite. The satellite weighs 270 pounds, 42 inches in diameter, and has a height of 19 inches. The satellite was launched into space by a Thor-Able rocket. The TIROS satellite carries with it, two six-inch long television cameras. One of the cameras has a wide-angle lens that could view an 800 mile radius of the earth at a time. The other camera has a photographic lens with a 10-12 power magnification over the wide angle camera. The satellite is stabilized in its orbit by spinning (similar to that of a top). When it first separates from the rocket's third stage, it will be spinning at about 136 revolutions per minute. To take clear pictures, a de-spin mechanism will slow the satellite down to 12 revolutions per minute after ...

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...nd located. The first major discovery made by TIROS 1 was the image of high degree organization of cloud patterns. This revelation increased the use of weather observation from orbiting satellites.

Image analyst professionals at the U.S. Weather Bureau also found that all cyclones (hurricanes, nor-easters, tornadoes, etc) are characterized by a very distinct vortex cloud pattern located in the center. Because of these mutual characteristics, large scale cloud and weather systems could be easily recognized and tracked for many days. TIROS I detected a storm off the coast of Madagascar and tracked this storm through its television cameras for five consecutive days! Yet another major discovery was that the weather fronts associated with mid-latitude storms are strikingly clear and easily identifiable on weather-satellite photographs.

Zachary Kovalovsky

Life Magazine