Week 12- Climate Change

 For this week, our homework was to watch "Before the Flood" which is a documentary starring Leonardo Dicaprio. It was way more interesting than I thought it would be. Some of the big things he focused on were:

1. Deforestation

2. Fossil Fuels

3. Pollution in Cities

4. Glaciers Melting

5. Oil Industry

6. Corruption in America's Lawmakers (protecting big companies instead of the environment and the citizens they are hired to represent)

I thought something that was especially interesting was how he traveled around the world and saw how climate change is affecting so many places, not just the US. 

In class, we discussed Climate VS Weather. Ted described it as personality vs mood which really made sense to me. Climate is your overall personality, how you generally are as a person. Weather is your mood that day. So you may be an awesome person who is just having a crappy day and is acting mean. Just like a beautiful tropical island may have an amazing climate but bad weather one day because of a storm. 

We also answered, "Why are some regions cold and others hot?". The answer is comprised of several parts:

L- Lattitude: Distance from the Equator is a key factor in determining whether a climate is hot or cold.

O- Ocean Currents: The temperature of an ocean current affects the temperature of air that passes over it.

W- Wind/Air Mass: a large volume of air that takes on the climatic conditions of the area where it is formed.

E- Elevation: The higher in altitude, the colder in temperature.

R- Relief: Precipitation created when an air mass rises to cross a mountain barrier.

Near Water: in the summer the water acts like an air conditioner to keep the air temperatures cool. In the winter water acts like a heater to keep the temperatures from getting too cold

•Continental Climate (Away from water)

•Maritime Climate (Close to water)