Geography 3A Introduction to Physical Geography ... - UCSB › ~siegel › GEOG3A › L01_G3A_010304.pdf · geomorphology (study of landforms), soil science, biogeography and ecology

Dr. Dave Siegel, Instructor

Tony Marca, Teaching AssistantJory Hecht, Teaching Assistant

Tony Boughman, Teaching Assistant

Dr. Dave Siegel, Instructor

Tony Marca, Teaching AssistantJory Hecht, Teaching Assistant

Tony Boughman, Teaching Assistant

Geography 3AIntroduction to Physical

GeographyOceanic and Atmospheric

Processes

Geography 3AIntroduction to Physical

GeographyOceanic and Atmospheric

ProcessesImage Credit: NASA Earth ObservatoryImage Credit: NASA Earth Observatory

Course syllabus

Course syllabus

discussion/lab sections meet this week!

new and used copies are available at the UCSB bookstore

Text/course overviewwhat we’ll

cover in this

course

covered in Geog

3B

What is physical geography?

physical geography encompasses elements of many disciplines, including climatology, meteorology, oceanography, geomorphology (study of landforms), soil science, biogeography and ecology (distribution and ecology of life), hydrology, and natural resources

physical geography is “the spatial analysis of the physical elements and processes that make up the environment: energy, air, water, weather, climate,

landforms, soils, animals, plants, microorganisms, and Earth itself”

Some of the stuff you will learn in this course

why the sky is blue and sunsets are red

why cloudy days are so bright

why Santa Barbara has such a mellow climate, and Minneapolis has such an intense climate

why we have seasons on Earth

how to understand climate change (’global warming’)

Chapter 1: some basics of geography

latitude, longituderemote sensing

GIS

also covered in the text: GPS, map projections, systems concepts

a note on metric to English conversions

Appendix C in the text

common examples

~1.6 km/mile (~0.6 miles/km)

~2.2 lbs/kgDegrees Celsius (C) to Degrees Fahrenheit (F)

C*1.8 + 32 = F

Latitude and parallelseach parallel

inscribes a circle

notice how each parallel gets smaller away

from the equator

Important latitudinal zones

Longitude and meridians

notice how lines of longitude converge at the poles

Circles great and small

Do all parallels form great circles? How about all meridians?

Latitude and Longitude

some useful facts:1. each point on earth rotates at the rate of 15

degrees/hour (360 degrees/24 hours)2. each degree of latitude is 111 km (69 miles) -

this is also true along the equator3. a minute of latitude is one nautical mile

what is the lat. and lon. of UCSB?

34.42 N119.70 W

length of a degree of longitude

lon=cosine(lat)*111 km

Figure 1.12

Determining latitude

the angle between the north star

(Polaris) and the horizon gives your

latitude

of course, you can also use the sun’s angle and a

table to determine your latitude

Determining longitude - much harder!

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/shackleton/navigate/images/inding_longitude.gif

rotates at 15 degrees/hour

(360 degrees/24 hours)

the key is having a

very accurate

clock on the ship that

keeps time at the prime

meridian

this problem greatly affected exploration, shipping, and commerce and caused many shipwrecks

3pm at PM12pm at location

see Focus study 1.2

Remote Sensing and Physical Geography

‘remote sensing’ simply means collecting information about distant objectssome examples.....

credit: http://eos.nasda.go.jp/image/remosens_e.jpg

Credit: http://www.icrse.orgsee also terra.nasa.gov

NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites

this satellite platform has 5 separate instruments

Credit: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/Images/3DGlobeEOS.jpg

image created from 5 remote sensing

data sets

Credit: http://www.state.ny.us/ltgovdoc/images/gis.gif

Geographic Information Systems and Physical Geography

what to do with the gigabytes of data streaming down to Earth from the satellites?

GIS provides a framework for

collecting, sorting, and analysing such data in a geographic

way

Final announcementsyou will have lab/discussion sections THIS week

questions?

please read chapters 1-2 in the text

we will briefly cover time zones & map projections, as these topics will be the focus of lab 1