Weather modification refers to willful manipulation of the climate or local weather. Research done in this field goes back to as far as the early 1940s when the US military experimented with cloud seeding to stimulate rain. Today, private corporations have joined the weather modification research effort to protect people, cities and assets from the …
When the Earth begins to get too hot, the water increases in temperature. As the water continues to get hotter, it begins to undergo a phase change in which water turns to gas. The water droplets turn into water vapor because the temperature has caused the individual water molecules to speed up considerably. This process …
An ultrasonic fogger is a device that uses ultrasonic sound waves to break water into millions of individual water droplets that are then sprayed into the air as a thick fog. Ultrasonic foggers are most often used for Halloween decorations as a dry ice replacement. The fog that an ultrasonic fogger produces is not created …
A psychrometer is a type of hygrometer and is used exclusively to determine the relative humidity or moisture content in the air. Psychrometers represent an older humidity measurement form and electronic sensors that depend on changes in electrical resistance and capacitance rather than condensation temperature have widely replaced them. However, psychrometers are still found in …
Lightning can be described as a massive discharge of electrical energy that can reach the speed of 130,000 mph and can exceed temperatures of 30,000 degrees Celsius. Although we know a lot about this phenomenon, it is still unclear how and why lightning forms. We will mention some of the theories on how lightning is …
An air exchanger is a device that transfers stale air from inside a home to outside, and fresh air from outside to the inside. Air exchangers are often large and built directly into a home’s foundation in order to provide maximum fresh air levels at all times. This is important because indoor air is often …
Blizzards are severe storms which are marked by extremely low temperatures, high-speed winds and substantial snowfall. They are formed when a region of high atmospheric pressure, termed as a ridge, interacts with a region of low atmospheric pressure. As a result of this, a phenomenon known as advection takes place, in which there is a …
A tsunami is formed when there is an earthquake, volcanic eruption or, more rarely, a landslide underwater. Typically, neither the earthquake, eruption or landslide are felt because they are so deep under water. However, the actions that have taken place are the first steps that lead to a massive tsunami that can cause tremendous damage …
The Coriolis effect is the tendency for a moving body that is on or above the Earth’s surface to drift sideways from its intended course due to the Earth’s rotation. The direction of drift is to the right in the Northern Hemisphere and to the left in the Southern Hemisphere. This is because the Earth’s …
A typhoon is nothing more than a hurricane that occurs in the North West Pacific Ocean. The same conditions that cause a hurricane in the Atlantic ocean that hit the United States every summer are the ones that cause a typhoon. However, a typhoon does have a series of specific “rules” to exist and therefore, …