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KSL Weather Team,
I am assisting our scoutmaster with the weather merit badge. Two requirements are giving me some difficulty. They are as follows:
Requirement 3) Draw cross sections of a cold front and a warm front showing the location and movements of the cold and warm air, the frontal slope, the location and types of clouds associated with the front, and the location of rain. Tell the differences between a cold front and a warm front.
Requirement 7) Define acid rain. Identify which human activities pollute the atmosphere as well as the effects such pollution can have on people.
If any of you could point us in the right direction it would be greatly appreciated.
Ron H
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The boyscouts and the girlscouts have various requirements to get badges. These range from topics on fronts and clouds to actually drawing out weather maps and being able to identify symbols on those maps. Frequently we get interviewed by the scouts to fufill some of the requirements as well.
Cold fronts are fantastic, we have one coming through later today and it should shift our wind and make things cooler and more comfortable. When talking about a cross section it makes it sound way more difficult than it actually is. Luckily for us, there's some information available to help out. Cross sections are basically slicing the front and looking at how, in the vertical, it would move across an area, and then see what it would do to the air and the clouds.
A link on the right will take to you the Intro to Meteorology notes at Lyndon State College, a class taught by Dr. Nolan Atkins. These notes are free and are intended yes for college students but since you'll be breaking the information down for the boys it should be understandable. The other link comes from U of Illinois and is animated to show you the cross section.
When you have a front, there are different levels of clouds ahead of that cold front. The air along the front is rising making for some deeper clouds. In the diagram from LSC the cloud names are abbreviated but ahead of the cold front you'll see cirrus, cirrocumulus, cumulonimbus and altostratus clouds.
The big difference between the fronts are the air masses themselves. Cold fronts have a wind shift to the west or northwest and contain colder air. Warm fronts bring in warmer temperatures. Cold fronts are a blue line with triangles and warm fronts are a red line with half circles. The Usa Today weather page also has info on fronts, the scouts should learn how to tell the difference on a weather map between the two. Also on the LSC page there are some great explanations of what happens when a cold or warm front moves into your area.
Acid rain is a broad term, Acid deposition is a better term to use and there are two types, wet deposition like acid rain, snow or fog and dry deposition. Sulfur Dioxide and Nitrogen Oxide from power plants go into the air and react with oxygen, water and other chemicals, this forms acidic compounds that fall to the ground as acid rain.
Because energy production causes the biggest portion of acid deposition we can conserve our electricity and use vehicles with low emissions.
When there are elevated levels of acid deposition or particles that can get transferred in the wind, we breathe it in, this can cause illness and early deaths from heart and lung problems like brochitis or asthma. In the water when there is more acid, the amount of aluminum increases which is toxic for the fish. This can make them smaller and less able to fight for food and places to live in the water. Young species of plants can also die from too much acid in the water. At very high levels, fish eggs may not hatch and some fish may even die.
Answered by KSL Meteorologist Dina Freedman.
