Module 2 Discussion Board

In order to calculate the degrees that the sun’s direct ray travels in a day, I started from

the equator (which is 0 degrees latitude) on March 20, and then over the next 92 days the sun

travels and reaches the Tropic of Cancer (which is at 23.5 degrees latitude) on June 21. I then

divided the 23.5 latitude by the 92 days traveled (23.5/92) which gives me .2554 degrees which

can be rounded to .26 degrees. The degrees that the sun’s most direct ray travels are about .26

degrees northward each day.

The exact latitude of my location is N 37 05.4336; converted to decimal degrees, 37.08.

Since my exact location is not between 23.5 degrees and -23.5 degrees the sun will never be over

my exact location. After reading my classmates post I figured if the sun never fell over CONUS

regions it for sure fell over South Korea. For those of you been that have been here, MOPP 4 in July

makes you feel like the sun is five feet above your head!

All controls are important when it comes to temperature, however; I think land/water

distribution is the second most important control. There are four things that come into factor when

talking about land and water, with the first being specific heat. According to (Newman, 2007): “it

takes five times more energy to raise the temperature of water compared to soil. Materials with

high specific heat (1 cal/gram for water vs 0.2 cal/gram for soil) resist changing temperature.”

The second reason is the amount of movement that takes place in the ocean. The mixing of

water distributes energy over a more wide-spread volume of waters. In oceans energy can

penetrate sub surface in waters while overland the energy is solely concentrated on the surface.

Lastly, evaporation plays a big role also. Evaporation absorbs energy which, in turn, lowers

temperature. On ocean surfaces evaporation happens more often than overland.

Source:

http://web.gccaz.edu/~lnewman/gph111/topic_units/temperature1/temperature/temperature2.html#la

titude...