A: Sea breeze, B: Land breeze

Lake - Sea breeze and atmospheric depth

A sea-breeze (or onshore breeze) is a wind from the sea that develops over land near coasts. Wind is the flow of Air or other Gases that compose an Atmosphere (including but not limited to the Earth's) It is formed by increasing temperature differences between the land and water which create a pressure minimum over the land due to its relative warmth and forces higher pressure, cooler air from the sea to move inland.

Main cause

The sea is warmed by the sun to a greater depth than the land due to its greater specific heat. An ocean (from Greek, ''Okeanos'' (Oceanus) is a major body of saline water, and a principal component of the Hydrosphere. Specific heat capacity, also known simply as specific heat, is the measure of the heat energy required to increase the Temperature of a unit quantity ^[1] The sea therefore has a greater capacity for absorbing heat than does the land and so the surface of the sea warms up more slowly than the land's surface. As the temperature of the surface of the land rises, the land heats the air above it. The warm air is less dense and so it rises. This rising air over the land lowers the sea level pressure by about 0. 2%. The cooler air above the sea, now with relatively higher sea level pressure, flows towards the land into the lower pressure, creating a cooler breeze near the coast. The strength of the sea breeze is directly proportional to the temperature difference between the land and the sea. If the environmental wind field is greater than 8 knots and opposing the direction of a possible sea breeze, the sea breeze is not likely to develop. ^[2]

Effects

Schematic cross section through a sea breeze front. If the air inland is moist, cumulus often marks the front.

A sea-breeze front is a weather front created by a sea-breeze, also known as a convergence zone. A weather front is a boundary separating two masses of air of different densities, and is the principal cause of meteorological phenomena. For convergence zones of sonars see Sonar#Sound_propagation. Convergence zone usually refers to a region in the atmosphere where two prevailing The cold air from the sea meets the warmer air from the land and creates a boundary like a shallow cold front. A cold front defined as the leading edge of a cooler and drier mass of air When powerful this front creates cumulus clouds, and if the air is humid and unstable, cumulonimbus clouds, the front can sometimes trigger thunderstorms. A cumulus cloud' is a type of Cloud with noticeable vertical development and clearly defined edges Humidity is the amount of water vapor in the air In daily language the term "humidity" is normally taken to mean Relative humidity. Instability in systems is generally characterized by some of the Outputs or internal states growing without Bounds. Cumulonimbus (Cb is a type of Cloud that is tall dense and involved in Thunderstorms and other intense Weather. If the flow aloft is aligned with the direction of the sea breeze, places experiencing the sea breeze frontal passage will be benign, or fair, weather for the remainder of the day. At the front warm air continues to flow upward and cold air continually moves in to replace it and so the front moves progressively inland. Its speed depends on whether it is assisted or hampered by the prevailing wind, and the strength of the thermal contrast between land and sea. At night, the sea-breeze usually vanishes.

Sea-breezes in Florida

Sea breeze convergence in Cuba. Note the northern sea breeze meets with the southern coasts' seabreeze, leading to a sharp convergence line in the cumulus field.

Thunderstorms caused by powerful sea breeze fronts frequently occur in Florida, a peninsula surrounded on both the east and west by the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, respectively. Florida ( is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States, bordering Alabama to the northwest and Georgia to the A peninsula is a piece of land that is nearly surrounded by Water but connected to Mainland via an Isthmus. The Gulf of Mexico ( Spanish: Golfo de México) is the ninth largest Body of water in the world No matter which direction the winds are blowing, they are always off the water, thus making Florida the place most often struck by lightning in the United States, and one of the most on Earth. Lightning is an atmospheric discharge of Electricity, which typically occurs during Thunderstorms and sometimes during volcanic eruptions or The United States of America —commonly referred to as the On especially calm days with little prevailing wind, sea-breezes from both coasts may collide in the middle, creating especially severe storms down the center of the state. These storms also tend to produce significant hail due to the tremendous uplift it causes in the atmosphere. Hail is a form of precipitation which consists of balls or irregular lumps of ice (hailstones Temperature and layers The temperature of the Earth's atmosphere varies with altitude the mathematical relationship between temperature and altitude varies among five In Florida, a sea-breeze pushed by prevailing winds may also continue past the land and out over the water at night, creating spectacular cloud-to-cloud lightning shows for hours after sunset.

Land breezes

At night, the land cools off quicker than the ocean due to differences in their specific heat values, which forces the dying of the daytime sea breeze. Specific heat capacity, also known simply as specific heat, is the measure of the heat energy required to increase the Temperature of a unit quantity If the land cools below that of the adjacent sea surface temperature, the pressure over the water will be lower than that of the land, setting up a land breeze as long as the environmental surface wind pattern is not strong enough to oppose it. Sea surface temperature (SST is the water Temperature close to the surface If there is sufficient moisture and instability available, the land breeze can cause showers or even thunderstorms, over the water. Overnight thunderstorm development offshore can be a good predictor for the activity on land the following day, as long as there are no expected changes to the weather pattern over the following 12-24 hours. The land breeze will die once the land warms up again the next morning.

See also

• Fremantle Doctor, the local name for the sea breeze in and around Perth, Western Australia

References

External links

• Sea and Land Breezes