The garden of the gods is effected in many regards when it come to climate. Like here in Denver, the Garden is right on the Eastern slope of the Continnental Divide and is effected by both the continental polar arimasses over Canada (mP), and the continental Tropical and maritime Tropical (cT, mT) that loom over the tropics to the South.
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| The Garden of the Gods would be found just West of the tip of the right arrow of the cT air mass, very near the posistion the Denver would be. |
The air masses move throughout the season, the cT brings warm dry air from the South, the cP bring dry but cold air, and the mT air mass bring moist and warm air. The collision and movement of the three often causes storm cells, thunderstorms, lightning, and rarely, even tornadoes.
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| A lightning strike finding ground in the Gateway Arch |
Storms here are not only cause by the collision of the airmasses necessarily. Often, due to adiabatic processes and orographic lifting, unstable airmasses will build right above the proximal continental divide and Pike's Peak. This unstable air becomes trapped and is forced to rise and rise. And as it does so more and more condensation takes place until eventually the mass needs to release all it's energy and begin dispersing.
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A diagram representing the accumulation of condensation above a mountain range.
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| On the horizon, an unstable air mass is trapped over the continnental divide |
The local area can esperience very strong winds. This, like some of the weather, is cause by the nearby continnental divide. These winds are often reffered to as "chinook" winds, and are the result of high pressure cells on the other side of the mountain that rush down the side of the mountain trying to reach lower pressure.
When taking a look at the albedo, or reflectivity of the sun's rays, of the Garden, one will notice that the area and shrubs around the large rock formations dont reflect much sunlight. However, looking at the rocks themselves, they stand out against the landscape with their brightness. The rocks' reflection of the insolation (incoming solar radiation) has a noticable effect on the area around.
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| The Bright, high albedo, rock formations Vs. background shrubery, low albedo |
Due to the reflection of the insolation, the temparature around the rocks, on the side the sun is hitting, is normally higher than that of the area around it and especially compared the the temp. of the other side.
Nick,
ReplyDeleteYour blog was very informative and covered a lot of information! It was interesting to find out that the climate is affected by three different air masses. I like the way you defined what each one of was and from which direction they came from. Your first visual provided good support to reiterate where the air masses meet and which direction they come from.
Your storm section was also very informative. I did not know that the storms are created from something other than air masses colliding. It was interesting to learn that the mass will continue to grow until it needs to dissipate. The way you described this provided a great understanding of the actual process and the steps which it takes to occur. It was cool to learn that air masses from Pike's Peak can effect storms at the Garden of the Gods.
Thanks for sharing,
Jaclyn Zelasko
Nick,
ReplyDeleteGarden of the Gods is a great choice for physical geography I like the graph you included about the cT air masses I would have never known that cT brings warm dry air from the South, the cP bring dry but cold air, and the mT air mass bring moist and warm air. Very informative about this section being that I don't know much about air masses.
Also, when you talk about reflection and isolation around the rocks, I didn't know that there were different temperatures on either side of Garden of the Gods though but it makes sense now.
Good Job!!
Miles