Question

1. Suppose you go to the beach in the morning on a sunny summer day. Explain the rate at which thermal energy is absorbed by the water, sand, and air during the day.
2. Explain why the flow of energy between air and sand is different than that between air and water as thermal energy is absorbed from day to night.

3. As the Sun begins to set, predict the effect on the rate at which the air, water, and sand cool

4. Explain why the flow of energy between air and sand is different than that between air and water as thermal energy is RELEASED.

Answer 1

Answer:

1. During the day, the sun heats up both the ocean surface and the land. Water is a good absorber of the energy from the sun. The land absorbs much of the sun’s energy as well. However, water heats up much more slowly than land and so the air above the land will be warmer compared to the air over the ocean.

2.The air over the ocean is now warmer than the air over the land. The land loses heat quickly after the sun goes down and the air above it cools too. This can be compared to a blacktop road. During the day, the blacktop road heats up and becomes very hot to walk on. At night, however, the blacktop has given up the added heat and is cool to the touch. The ocean, however, is able to hold onto this heat after the sun sets and not lose it as easily. This causes the low surface pressure to shift to over the ocean during the night and the high surface pressure to move over the land. This causes a small temperature gradient between the ocean surface and the nearby land at night and the wind will blow from the land to the ocean creating the land breeze.

3. The sand should both heat and cool faster than the water. This is because water has a higher specific heat ca- pacity than sand – meaning that it takes a lot of heat, or energy, to raise the temperature of water one degree, whereas it takes comparatively little energy to change the temperature of sand by one degree.

4.