Lecture 10: Introduction to global circulation of the atmosphere

UPDATE: I'm making materials available for all of my lectures on my website (melstrong.org) for either those bored folks stuck at home due to the virus or teachers looking for online content. For this lecture I have a project where students use two internet tools to find large-scale weather patterns on the Earth.

In this lecture we go over the basics of big circulation patterns in the atmosphere including the ITCZ, the Hadley Cell, the subtropical highs, and the easterlies / westerlies. We also talk about the rain shadow effect and how that can cause small-scale variations in local climate.

This was originally part of the Blue Planet lecture series at the University of New Mexico. If you are interested in weather, this lecture is now part of my "weather short course" playlist, where there are another ~15 videos similar to this one.