Introduction of My Adventure Scrapbook

Introduction

Panoramic View of Abraham Lake, Alberta, Canada. All of my picture are my photos, unless it is noted.
(I will be in a lot of pictures since it is a part of the assignment.) :D

Welcome to my physical geography scrapbook, where it highlights some of my encounters with physical geography around the globe! This blog is intended for my independent academic project for my Physical Geography class at King’s University College (Edmonton AB, Canada), but it also involves with some personal stuff as well.

All of the information is based on my course lectures and a book called Physical Geography: The Global Environment (2^nd Canadian Edition), by H.J. de Blij and four other authors, published by Oxford University Press in year 2009. 

This scrapbook simply highlights some key concepts from each unit of the book that resembles part of my adventures, but it doesn't mean that the rest of the chapter are boring concepts. In fact they all are interesting!!!Physical Geography is actually full of cool stuff around us.

Once we know it, our curiosity will draw us into more observations while we are out into this world… like a treasure hunt! Well, shall we start this amazing journey together?!

Me seeking for ongoing adventures! (taken by the West coast of Vancouver Island)

1. Introduction to Physical Geography

Ancient Pine trees form together into a forest ecosystem, Cathedral Grove, May 2014. MacMillan Provincial Park, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.

Human-environment interaction

Geography comprises many fields: physical geography (which is the central topic of this course) and human geography are the two of the many. All the geography involves with the importance of space and time (such as location, place, movement, and region). Physical geography focuses on the non-human (physical) world, while human geography seeks at the interaction between human and the environment. By what I mean about the physical focus in physical geography, it is the field that studies geological, meteorological, and biological phenomena and processes. The field of human geography brings us majorly two questions: What is the impact of environment on human? What is the impact of human on the environment? The landscape and environment (such as climates) does shapes our settlement on planet earth, but the second question will definitely raises up our issue of climate change and global warming as more deforestation is occurring around the globe.

2. The Planet Earth

King’s University College’s Geography 201 field trip to Maligne Lake, May 2014. Jasper National Park, Alberta.

Panorama of Maligne Lake, May 2014. Jasper National Park, Alberta.

Sphere of Earth System

The Earth System involves with interactions of the five spheres or subsystems on the planet, and they encompass parts of the regional subsystem. In the picture above, we can see all five spheres (subsystems). Atmosphere subsystem stretches from a few meters within the soil or water surface up to a height about 60,000 km above the Earth, with a layer of air that surrounds the Earth for regulating weather and climates. Lithosphere (lithos means rock) is the outermost shell of the Earth, and its upper surface covers with varieties of landforms and landscapes forms among the lands, mountains, and even the seafloor under the ocean. Hydrosphere consists of all water existing in the planet, and the ocean is the primary moisture source for precipitation which is carried in the moving atmosphere. Cryosphere can also be seen as there are frozen water on the lake and snow on the mountains (there might be glaciers too!), but probably not permafrost (permanently frozen subsoil for two or more years)! Although some of the aspect can be regarded as part of the hydrosphere, what makes this a unique subsystem is that it is the only sphere that is discontinuous across the planet. Biosphere is the zone of life, including animals, plants, and human life. Other than me in the picture, there are definitely plants and organisms within the lake (even though it might not be visible to our naked eye!).

3. Mapping the Earth’s Surface

Geo-caching around King’s campus area, we signed the paper slit and placed back where we found it. May 2014.

Geo-caching

Maps have been expressed by human beings for the recognition of particular places and locations, and Philip Muehrcke defines it as any geographical image of the environment. They are more than just diagrams since they displayed important features such as scale, area, and shape. Nowadays, GPS (global positioning system) has been much more convenient to make measurements of latitude and longitude at any time and most locations on the planet. One of the class activities we did outside the classroom is geo-caching, where we try to find the “hidden treasure” through the utilization of GPS on our smartphones. We spent about an hour to walk around (and outside) the campus to find and signed them. Pretty fun (and time consuming) activity when you are bored in the summer!

4. Earth’s Setting in Space

Sunset and the moon at one of the beach by Tofino, British Columbia. May 2014.

Universe and Galaxies

When staring at the sunset, I always imagine how great is the universe and where are we actually? Universe contains all matter and energy existing anywhere in space and time, and within one of the Superclusters there is local galaxy (an organized disk-like assemblage of billions of stars) group (out of 30 galaxies), in one of them is where our Milky Way locates. The corner of that galaxy is the Solar System, and planet Earth is one of the eight major planets orbiting the Sun. In addition, all distances are measured in light years and the distance that travelled by a pulse of light in one year is approximately 9.46 trillion kilometers. This reflects how small we are and the greatness of the Universe!

5. Composition and Structure of the Atmosphere

Drinking nice and cold coconut water in one of the humidly hot days in Hong Kong, China. June 2012.

Water Vapour’s Property

When I was travelling to Hong Kong, the temperature down there is hot and I sweat a lot! I always wonder why I sweat that frequently at this geological location. Water vapor is one of the variable gases in the atmosphere, and is more efficient than carbon dioxide to capture radiant energy from the Sun. When the air becomes warmer, it enables to hold more moisture or water vapor. This phenomenon can then explain high humidity at hot temperature regions, and demonstrates the relationship between water vapor and weather.

7. Atmospheric and Surface Temperature

The surroundings are full of “smoke” and redness during the 2010 Shanghai Expo in Shanghai, China. June 2010.

Urban Heat Islands

Urban Heat Islands involve a combination of high fuel combustion activities, massive absorption of heat by urban materials of concrete and asphalt, as well as the dust dome (dome-shaped layer of polluted air) in the city. The dome-like circulation of warm air is usually what creates a dust dome which the dust in the city is stuck within an unending cycle throughout the city. As the warm air lifts the small (less dense) particles up in the middle of the city, this low pressure area contains hot air and many little particles which are then slowly drifting toward the edge of the city while the air (and particles) are suck back into the city due to the low pressure (movement of high to low pressure) in the center of the city. Smog, which is poor-quality surface-level air, can also be seen in these highly polluted areas. When I was in Shanghai (China), the heat over there has a different feeling and you can barely see a thing at far distances. The weirdest thing is the red color throughout Shanghai (it was not the camera), the entire area was smoky and red. This could be the result of high sun radiation on urban heat islands.

8. Air Pressure and Winds

The west coast is quite windy and cold at daytime by the shore of Piper Lagoon Park, Nanaimo, British Columbia (Canada)

Sea Breeze

Sea breeze usually occurs at daytime when cold air is introducing towards the land, causing the ocean shore to experience cool winds throughout the day. This phenomenon contains a circulation (cell) created between high and low pressure of the sea and land respectively, while it also involves with the heating of land and sea. In daytime, the land warms up quicker than land and experiencing low pressure gradient. The warm air is then rising (while decreasing air temperature) and moving into the highly pressured ocean, where the cool air sinks down into the ocean and bringing them back to the land. When I was in Piper Lagoon Park in Nanaimo (B.C. Canada), I experienced a lot of cold winds blowing from the ocean while sitting by the shore. Now I understand why it is so windy down by the shore in daytime.

9. Circulation Pattern of the Atmosphere

At the sandy beach of Kota Kinabalu, the weather is unstable and they always expect to be rainy nearly at daily basis. Not as what I am expecting of sunny beaches. Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia. June 2013.

Equatorial Low or Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ)

As the equatorial region undergoes heating all year-round, this latitudinal zone creates a thermal low-pressure belt by area that is 35◦ latitude north and south of the equator. The Earth heat transfers process goes from the equator towards the poles. When the air rises from the surface of equator to the tropopause and flowing poleward to either Northern or Southern Hemisphere, the air cools while rising and this causes the clouds to develop which favoring heavy precipitations in equatorial low (ITCZ or Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone) regions. In Kota Kinabalu (Malaysia), my prediction was sunny beach every day, but it turns out that the region is rainy at most of the time since it is located within the equatorial low belt and is only 661 km away from the equator.

10. Hydrosphere: Circulation of the World Ocean

The ocean water in Malaysia is much warmer than the one by the west coast of North America. Sabah, Malaysia. June 2013.

Ocean Currents

One of the main ways to distribute the imbalance heat of the Earth surface, ocean currents creates a large-scale water movement to transport the warmer water from Equatorial Regions to the csold waters in the Polar Regions. Interestingly enough, there is more currents involving with heat movement than heat transfer within the Equatorial Region. Moreover, the heat is transported in the first 100 meters of the ocean water with a speed of eight kilometers per hour. In general, ocean currents are set up by the frictional force of surface wind upon the water surface, driven by Coriolis forces, structure of landmasses, and water density or salinity.

11. Atmospheric Moisture and the Water Balance

Snapshot at the peak of the hoodoos, Drumheller, Alberta. May 2014.

Clouds

Clouds are visible air masses that accumulate and transport water, which need to contain saturated air and condensation nuclei toward its formation. There are three categories in the cloud classification: Stratus, Cumulous, and Cirrus clouds. In this picture, the cumulous clouds appear as puffy and thick at great heights. Sometimes, they can also further categorized into: stratocumulus (< 3 km), altocumulus (3-6 km), or cirrocumulus clouds (> 6 km).

12. Precipitation, Air Masses, and Fronts

Warm front by the Noah Ark Exhibition, Hong Kong, China. June 2011.

Frontal Precipitation

Frontal Precipitation is the frontal movement created by the uplift of warm air, which is then cooled and the water vapor undergo condensation. One of the types is the cold front, where the cold air wedge-like movement forces the warm air to rise and condense into a huge cumulonimbus creating a dramatic rainfall. Warm front allows the lighter warm air to rise and spreading out the rain clouds along the increasing gentle slope above the cold air, overriding the cooler air. From my photo, my background resembles a warm front since the rain cloud is not as dramatic as it seems to be and the rain was not too hard.

14. Severe Weather

Heat Wave in Alice Spring, Australia.

Heat Wave

In summer months, heat waves can potentially be more severe than hurricanes, floods, or tornadoes. It defines as a period of more than three consecutive days of maximum temperature at or above 32°C. When I was little at Alice Spring (Australia), the heat wave there was nearly as 40°C for weeks. We were told to drink water frequently before it’s too late to have concussion.

15. Weather Tracking and Forecasting

Environmental Canada (weather station) in Edmonton, Alberta.

Weather Organization

There are many weather stations within Canada, and 290 of them are climate stations (study long term climate patterns) that contain more than 30 years of continuous record. These stations applies their research with instrumentation (such as thermometers, barometers, and weather vanes etc.) and radiosondes (radio-equipped instrument packages carried aloft by balloon) to acquire full understanding of weather (meteorology). Environmental Canada is one of the radiosondes stations, and they oversee divisions that relate to weather and climate.

16. Climate Classification and Regionalization

Mesothermal Climate in Okinawa, Japan. 2011 

Climate Classification

Köppen classification system was invented by a Swiss botanist Alphonse de Candolle in 1874, in which he named after Wladimir Köppen who classified climates with plants.

Other influential factors on regional climates:

• Latitude
• High pressure vs. low pressure zones
• Heat exchange from ocean currents
• Altitude
• Local winds
• Land and sea distribution
• Topography of landforms

With these factors, Köppen system brings forth the following classifications:

• Tropical (A)
• Dry/Arid (B)
• Mesothermal (C)
• Microthermal (D)
• Polar (E)
• Highland (F)

17. Global Climates

Whale-watching at San Juan Island, WA, USA. August 2013.

Mesothermal (C) Climates – Perpetually Moist (Cf) Climates

There are two major regional groupings and they both are near a major source of water: the Humid Subtropical (Cfa) Climate is created by the warm moist air travelling around the western part of subtropical high. It locates in the southeastern corner of the five major continents, with a total rainfall nearly as much as tropical rainforests. Marine West Coast (Cfb, Cfc) Climate influenced by the westerlies winds all year-round, occurring by the coast. Whidbey Island or San Juan Island for example, the humidity and precipitation stay above the minimum while they fluctuate throughout the year.

18. Dynamics of Past and Present Climate Change

The moraine of 1925 at Athabasca Glacier: the consequence of global warming and climate change. Athabasca Glacier, Alberta, Canada.

Global Warming and Climate Change

Our planet earth has been suffocated from consequences of rising global temperature, and one of them is melting of mountain glaciers and ice landmasses. Especially on the site of Athabasca Glacier (Alberta), today’s remaining glaciers are not as much as it was on 1925 and the rapid melting process is still going. A decade ago people might say that it is global warming or greenhouse effect, but now our perspective shift toward climate change where emission of greenhouse gases from human activities have altered the entire Earth system.

20. Planet Earth in Profile: The Layered Interior

On top of the Hoodoos where lots of sedimentary layered valleys can be seen, Drumheller, Alberta, Canada.

Earth Crust Layers

At my class Drumheller trip, we saw layers of soil and rocks (and coal) in most valleys and they are representing a small fraction of Earth’s origin. The Earth is made of mainly four different bodies: solid inner core, liquid outer core, solid lower mantle, and the upper mantle. Solid Inner Core has a radius of 1220 km, the pressure within is able to keep nickel and iron in solid state. Moving upward, a 2250 km thick Liquid Outer Core consists of molten iron and nickel since the pressure is much lower. Outside of that is the Solid Lower Mantle about 2230 km thick, and containing various oxides. Upper Mantle is the thinnest of all at the border of the Earth’s crust (670 km), it is partially molten and interacts with the crust in many ways.

22. Minerals and Igneous Rocks

Fine grained black granite exterior surface, former building of the Toronto-Dominion Bank (Jasper Avenue), Edmonton, Alberta. May 2014

Igneous Rock

Rock Types are classified into three different kinds: Igneous rocks are from magma cooling; Sedimentary rocks are from weathering, deposition, compression, and erosion; Metamorphic rocks are rock modified by heat and pressure. As igneous rocks are named ‘born of fire’ in Latin, intrusive ones are within the crust and extrusive ones are above the crust. An excellent example for intrusive igneous rock is granite, where the history of the Empire Building is carved in fine grained black granite.