Summary:
Almost all of earth's energy comes from the sun. Radiant energy travels through space and heats the earth's surface, although not uniformly due to the shape and geography of the planet.
Almost all of the energy in the system comes from the sun, which provides us with heat, light, and radiation. Radiant energy travels from the sun, through space and warms the earth's surface. Because the earth is not flat, the sun heats up different parts of it faster than others. For example, a mountainside will only get half the sun a flat desert would get, because it is only in the sun for half of a day, and a flat land would get sun all day, and so the mountainside would be cooler. Water takes much longer to heat up and cool down than land and air do, so water is almost always a separate temperature than the shore or anywhere on land. This differential heating of the earth's surface causes various occurrences in the atmosphere.
Air near land warms up by conduction, and as it heats, expands and becomes less dense than the cooler air surrounding it. While the warm air rises, the cool air falls into the spot previously occupied by the warm air, and it too is heated and the process starts all over again. This is called convection, and with the differential heating of the Earth's surface, it causes wind. Prevailing winds are created when the heated air off the equator rises into the atmosphere. From there, it moves towards the poles where it eventually cools down and sinks, a portion of it continuing to move towards the poles, and the other part moving back towards the equator.
Energy leaves the system in the form of heat, and a trivial amount of energy is reflected off ozone, dust, or water particles.
Climate depends on latitude (a location close to the equator is likely to be warmer than somewhere far north or south), ocean currents (for anywhere near the coast), elevation (in the Troposphere, which is located from Earth's surface to about 14 ½ kilometers high, the temperature drops from about 17° to -52° Celsius or about 63° to -60.4° Fahrenheit, so a mountain is more likely to be colder than a low-lying desert), topography (see above J), prevailing winds, and the proximity to large bodies of water (if you are near a large body of water, you are effected by sea breezes, currents, and precipitation).
To predict weather, you need cloud cover (if you know the cloud cover, it can tell you a lot about precipitation and whether or not there will be any), temperature (obviously if all the other elements indicate that it's going to snow, and it is 75° F outside, you know it's not. Additionally, you need the temperature to predict the temperature), humidity and dew point (those together can give you a very strong hint of whether or not it will rain, and how humid it will be later on), season (you can expect warmer weather in the summer and cooler winter during winter), wind direction and speed (so you can determine the cloud cover and precipitation, and wind direction and speed), Barometric Pressure (high pressure usually means warm and dry weather, low pressure is usually cold and brings with it precipitation. A low always follows a high, and vice versa.), and history and averages of all of the elements (if you know the history, it is easier to predict because you can sometimes count on the weather to be practically the same).
The world is divided into several Biogeographic realms. The major biogeographic realms differ based on climate and endemic organisms. Each realm was set after intense examination of the biodiversity of the realm. The biogeographic realms contain several different climate zones inside of them, which help determine what species dwell within them. The eight terrestrial realms are the palearctic realm, which is located furthest north, covering all of Europe, northern Asia (Himalayas and north), and a small area of north Africa. It mainly contains polar, tundra, alpine, and coniferous forests. The Nearctic Realm is located in the Northwest and covers North America down to Baja California and Greenland. It holds temperate, temperate deciduous forests, coniferous forests, chaparral, tundra, temperate grasslands, and deserts. The Neotropical Realm covers Central and South America and contains tropical forests, alpine, polar, tundra, grasslands and savannahs, and deserts. The Ethiopian or Afrotropical Realm takes up most of Africa and includes tropical forests, savannahs, chaparral, and deserts. The Oriental or Indomalayan Realm is located in Southeast Asia and includes tropical, coniferous, deciduous, and mized forests, grasslands and savannahs, and deserts. Australasia covers Australia and the surrounding islands (e.g. New Zealand and New Guinea) and incorporates tropical forests, deserts, mixed forests, savannahs, grasslands, and tundra. The Antarctic Realm covers all of Antarctica and contains only tundra climates.
In addition to the ten terrestrial biomes, there are four aquatic biomes. Standing water may be found in all of the biogeographical realms excepting Antarctica. It is any still water, from puddles to giant lakes. Moving water is also found almost worldwide (it is not found in the Antarctic realm.)
Carbon cycles through photosynthesis and respiration starting with the atmosphere, in Carbon Dioxide. CO2 is taken in by the plants through photosynthesis and, with water (H2O), enables them to make glucose which is C6H12O6. An herbivore eats the plant and all of its glucose (and carbon), and the animal's body turns the glucose to proteins and sugars. Then, a carnivore (or omnivore) comes along and eats the herbivore. It takes in the carbon as proteins and sugars from the herbivore's body. Eventually, it dies, and carbon is released from its carcass into the atmosphere. The cycle begins over again. While all of this is going on, all the animals are exhaling CO2 and letting it into the atmosphere where plants can absorb it. Additionally, carbon can be found in calcium carbonate (rocks, clamshells, and bird eggs), carbon monoxide (which is given off by man-made machines such as cars), and oil (gasoline).
The nitrogen cycle starts with nitrogen fixing bacteria which take nitrogen out of the atmosphere and "fix" it so that plants can use it. Plants make proteins from bacteria, and animals eat the plants with the nitrogen. When they die, nitrogen is released back into the atmosphere and the process is renewed.
--Mary Anderson
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