Anabatic Winds are upslope winds driven by warmer surface temperatures on a mountain slope than the surrounding air column. Katabatic winds are downslope winds created when the mountain surface is colder than the surrounding air and creates a down slope wind.

What do you mean by Anabatic wind?

anabatic wind, also called upslope wind, local air current that blows up a hill or mountain slope facing the Sun. During the day, the Sun heats such a slope (and the air over it) faster than it does the adjacent atmosphere over a valley or a plain at the same altitude.

How does Anabatic wind occur?

Anabatic winds are mainly created by ultraviolet solar radiation heating up the lower regions of an orographic area (i.e. valley walls). Due to its limited heat capacity, the surface heats the air immediately above it by conduction. As the air warms, its volume increases, and hence density and pressure decreases.

What are the two types of katabatic winds?

Warm, dry katabatic winds occur on the lee side of a mountain range situated in the path of a depression. Examples for these descending, adiabatically warmed katabatic winds are the Foehn winds. Cold and usually dry katabatic winds, like the Bora, result from the downslope gravity flow of cold, dense air.

What are downslope winds?

Downslope Winds occur when warm/dry air descends rapidly down a mountain side. These are common on the east side of the Rocky Mountains, called Chinook Winds. ... This creates dry winds that flow east to west through the mountain passages in Southern California.

Anabatic and Katabatic wind

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What do katabatic winds do?

Katabatic winds often result from cool, denser air moving downhill towards warmer, less dense air. Because of this, they affect local climates, even reducing humidity in the air and blowing away snow.

What is downslope flow?

Downslope Flow

A thermally driven wind directed down a mountain slope and usually occurring at night; part of the along-slope wind system.

Are katabatic winds warm?

Though generally cold, katabatic winds can also be warm or hot. This is because as the air moves downhill and is compressed it warms (the katabatic wind would start out cold but become warmer as it moves downhill). A chinook (foehn) wind is a warm dry down slope wind.

What are katabatic winds and where do they occur?

Locations. Katabatic winds are most significant in the two parts of the world with grand continental ice sheets: Greenland and Antarctica. Those huge frozen plateaus -- the last remnants of the enormous ice bodies of the Pleistocene glaciations -- reliably generate katabatic air movements along their margins.

What does the word katabatic mean?

: relating to or being a wind produced by the flow of cold dense air down a slope (as of a mountain or glacier) in an area subject to radiational cooling.

What is Anabatic in geography?

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. An anabatic wind, from the Greek anabatos, verbal of anabainein meaning moving upward, is a warm wind which blows up a steep slope or mountain side, driven by heating of the slope through insolation. It is also known as an upslope flow.

Where are katabatic winds found?

Katabatic winds are most commonly found blowing out from the large and elevated ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland. The buildup of high density cold air over the ice sheets and the elevation of the ice sheets brings into play enormous gravitational energy.

How do Chinook Winds form?

Chinook winds develop when warm, moist air blows from the Pacific Ocean in the northwest region of North America toward the Rocky Mountain range, according to Rocky Mountain National Park. ... When the winds suddenly change direction toward the west or southwest, the Chinook winds begin with rapidly increasing speeds.

Can you describe a katabatic wind?

Katabatic wind, also called downslope wind, or gravity wind, wind that blows down a slope because of gravity. It occurs at night, when the highlands radiate heat and are cooled. ... This process is most pronounced in calm air because winds mix the air and prevent cold pockets from forming.

What is the fern effect?

What is the foehn effect? In simple terms, this is a change from wet and cold conditions one side of a mountain, to warmer and drier conditions on the other (leeward) side.

What are types of wind?

This classification is based on the periodicity of occurrence and location of occurrence.

• Primary Wind or Planetary Wind. ...
• Secondary Wind or Periodic Wind. ...
• Tertiary Wind or Local Wind. ...
• Trade Winds. ...
• The Westerlies. ...
• Polar Easterlies. ...
• Monsoon Winds. ...
• Land Breeze and Sea Breeze.

Where does geostrophic wind occur?

The geostrophic wind is found at altitudes above 1000 metres (3300 ft.) above ground level. The geostrophic wind speed may be measured using weather balloons. Winds are very much influenced by the ground surface at altitudes up to 100 metres.

What are katabatic winds in Antarctica?

The air flow gets stronger, turning into fast-flowing winds called katabatic winds. These katabatic winds roar toward the coast of Antarctica. Fairly quiet conditions turn instantaneously, with katabatic winds reaching speeds of 15 to 20 meters per second (50 to 66 ft/sec)!

What are drainage winds?

Cold-air-runoff winds that are produced when air in contact with terrain surfaces is cooled and flows downslope and/or downvalley. Over even gently sloping topography, drainage winds also refer to gravity winds that drain cold air into frost hollows, river valleys, and other lower-lying terrain. ...

Is katabatic wind warm or cold?

Katabatic wind is a dense cold wind that sinks down from high mountain plateaus to valleys below. It is described by Meteorologists as heavy cold air that practically mimics the movement of mountain water as it flows downslope and waterfalls over steep canyons.

Why are katabatic winds intense in winter?

Katabatic winds increase air tem- peratures and decrease humidity because of the compres- sional warming air as it descends from the polar plateau. In winter, local air temperatures can increase by 30°C in a few hours.

Why is Antarctica so cold?

Both the Arctic (North Pole) and the Antarctic (South Pole) are cold because they don't get any direct sunlight. The Sun is always low on the horizon, even in the middle of summer. In winter, the Sun is so far below the horizon that it doesn't come up at all for months at a time.

What is earthflow and mudflow?

Earthflownoun. A downslope viscous flow of fine-grained materials that have been saturated with water, moving under the pull of gravity. Mudflownoun. A type of landslide characterized by large flows of mud and water.

What is downslope warming?

So what is downsloping, how does it work, and how does it affect your weather? Downsloping is the process that occurs when a stream of air is forced to descend a mountain. As the air descends, it undergoes a series of changes that result in a warming/drying effect. This series of changes is known as adiabatic warming.

What is the downslope movement of soil and rock due to gravity?

Mass movement is an erosional process that moves rocks and sediments downslope due to the force of gravity. The material is transported from higher elevations to lower elevations where other transporting agents like streams or glaciers can pick it up and move to even lower elevations.