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 ** How Natural Phenomena Can Effect Climate **   Climate is the state where weather changes in a large location over a period of time. It is known to be “expected weather”. Examples of climate are precipitation (rain, snow, hail etc). There are many phenomena’s that can effect climate change including, Biosphere Processes, Volcanic Eruptions, Coriolis effect, El Nino and La Nina.

**//  Biosphere Process: //** can affect climate using green house effects. About thirty percent of the sunlight th at beams toward Earth is deflected by the outer atmosphere and reflected back into space. The rest reaches the planet's surface and is reflected upward again as a type of slow-moving energy called infrared radiation. Green house gases are then absorbed by infrared radiation which is caused by heat. Examples of green house gases are water vapor, ozone, methane, and carbon dioxide. Even though it only makes about 1 % of Earths atmosphere, it modulates our climate by trapping heat and holding it in a kind of warm-air blanket that surrounds the planet.

//** Volcanic Eruptions:**// affect climate in severe ways. They produce major quantities of carbon dioxide, a gas known to contribute to the greenhouse effect. These greenhouse gases trap heat radiated off of the surface of the earth forming a type of insulation around the planet. So people are worried that our production of gases such as carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels may be damaging the system extensively, resulting to an increase in global warming. They can also produce gases such as, hydrogen chloride and hydrogen fluoride gases and when combined with water can produce acid rain, killing crops, vegetation and live stock. In addition volcanic eruptions also dispense ash particles and sulfur-rich gases into the troposphere and stratosphere, which results to the decrease of amount of sunlight reaching the surface of the earth and lower average global temperatures.

//** The Coriolis Effect:**// has a big impact in climate change. The change formation off winds/air on surface and ocean currents involve the Coriolis effect because of earth's rotation. The movement of these winds and ocean current affect climate in various ways. In terms of winds, the air rises off of the earth's surface, allowing speed over the surface to increase because there’s less drag as the air no longer has to move across the earth's numerous landforms. As this happens the Coriolis effect increases and significantly deflects air flows. In the hemispheres, these winds either spiral to the left of right creating the westerly winds moving from the subtropical areas to the poles. Ocean currents are affected too, due to the ocean's largest currents circulating around warm, high pressure areas called gyres. The deflection caused by the Coriolis effect is what creates the spiraling pattern in these gyres.

 **//El Nino://** is known to be the " disturbances of climate" it occurs around the tropical Pacific Ocean and involves warmer than usual temperatures, great amounts of rainfall (in the northern hemisphere) and low atmospheric pressure. Examples of La Nino include flooding from Ecuador to the Gulf of Mexico, massive marine life die-offs in the Pacific, hurricanes in Tahiti and Hawaii, and concurrent droughts in many other parts of the world from Southern India to Australia to Central America.

//** La Nina:**// can also relate to El Nino however involves cooler temperatures and high atmospheric pressure. During La Nina strong winds blow moisture away, making for cloudless skies and dry conditions in equatorial countries from the International Date Line east to South America. Even though La Nina occurs less than El Nino's, examples of a La Nina is the Eastern Pacific, in 1988-1989.

__** Bio : **__ http://markdowe.wordpress.com/2008/09/09/climate-change-and-the-coriolis-effect%E2%80%A6/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-do-volcanoes-affect-w http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tao/elnino/la-nina-story.html http://kids.earth.nasa.gov/archive/nino/intro.html http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/climate/cli_biosphere.html http://www.cotf.edu/ete/modules/volcanoes/vclimate.html 