Answer 1:
Good question! Weather is important in people's
lives in many different ways. Weather, including
winds, thunderstorms, hurricanes, and tornadoes,
is really just the earth's way of redistributing
heat around its surface.
Heat from the sun causes ocean surface waters
to evaporate near the equator; the heat is carried
in the water vapor and is released during big
thunderstorms and hurricanes.
Winds are caused by pressure gradients, which
are formed by hot air rising or cold air sinking.
Weather is important to people in many
different ways, but several major examples come to
mind:
1) Weather controls the distribution of rain water
on earth. All living organisms on earth require
liquid water to survive, and humans require fresh
(not salty) water for drinking and agriculture
(growing crops for food). Droughts can have a
major impact on humans and have killed millions of
people throughout history.
2) "Severe" weather such as hurricanes, tornadoes,
and floods have a huge impact on human
civilizations. An obvious example of this was
Hurricane Katrina, which impacted a huge are of
the gulf coast of the U.S., killed nearly two
thousand people, and displaced over one million
people from their homes.
3) The first two examples show some of the
negative impacts of weather, but weather has also
played an important role in the distributions of
humans on earth and the development of different
cultures. The climate (the long-term weather of an
area) ultimately determines if an area will be
nice for people to inhabit. Throughout history,
climate has influenced migrations of humans over
the earth. For example, there is a prevailing idea
in archaeology that humans migrated into North
America from Asia during a time of colder climate
and lower sea level.
There are many ways that weather is important in
people's lives; these are just a few examples. Click Here to return to the search form.
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