Why is it windy along the coast?

Question

Why is it windy along the coast?

Answer 1

Because.  Give me a second to get my thoughts straight.

Anyway, if you are sitting at the beach at 9pm - during the summer - you will notice an off-shore breeze as the water is warmer than the surrounding land.  The air above the water - being warmer rises and the cooler air from the land moves out there to replace that rising air.

During the daytime, the surface of the land is warmer than the adjacent water and as the air rises over the land - the cooler air over the water comes in to replace it.

The reason for all of this is the differences is the time it takes for a given amount of land or water to heat up or cool down.

Water retains heat or cool much longer than anything else due to its heat capacity.

During the hot day sun - good old water stays within a few degrees whereas the land heats up big time.

During the night - gool old water says within a few degrees whereas the land cools down big time.

This is what causes all of the wind.

Water's relatively stable temp and the air above it vs the wildly fluxuating temp of the land and the air above it.

During the mid-day hot sun, hot air is rising quick over the coastal hot land and cooler air over the water rushes in to replace it.

During the midnight coldness, the land is colder now than the water so the warmer air over the water rises with the air over the cold land (off-breeze) flowing out there to replace it.

On a bigger scale this is what causes the monsoons in India and in other places.

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Haven't answered your question yet directly.

The one simple answer would be - the water molecule -

Since water molecules are attracted to each other to each other by hydrogen bonding , they tend to stick together: this is called cohesion.

Because of this cohesion, water has high surface tension. If you have ever seen an insect walking on the surface of a pond, and wondered what was going on, it is because of surface tension.  Hydrogen bonds are holding the molecules of water together, forming a surface "skin" that an insect can walk on (if it spreads its weight out over the surface).  Surface tension is responsible for water sticking together in small drops.   In a slowly dripping faucet, watch the drop get bigger and bigger, until it finally falls into the sink.  This happens because the attraction of the water molecules to each other is strong, holding them together until the drop gets to be a certain size, when the pull of gravity overcomes the cohesion of the water molecules.

Water has good adhesion: water molecules are attracted to other polar molecules, and to solid surfaces. Water molecules adhere to soil particles, to fibers in a towel, and to many other substances.

Hydrogen bonding also water makes capillary action possible: the ability of water to pull itself upward through small openings against the pull of gravity. The water molecules adhere to the surface of the material in the opening, and cohere to each other.  You might think of it as if a mountain climber were clinging to the side of the mountain with one hand, and holding on to his climbing companion with the other: he is adhering to the mountain, and cohering to his companion.   Spill some water, then dip the end of a paper towel into it.  What happens to the water?  It climbs upwards through the paper towel.  This is capillary action. Capillary action helps water move upward in soil.

Water is a good solvent: water molecules can also attract ions, or charged particles. This makes it able to dissolve other substances easily.

Water has a high specific heat. Specific heat is the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one gram of a substance 1 degree Celsius. The specific heat of water is 1 cal/g, much higher than the specific heat of most other substances (ammonia is an exception). For example, the specific heat of most earth materials, such as rock and soil, is about 5 times as great as that of water. This means that water can absorb more solar energy without its temperature increasing.

Go to the beach on a hot summer day (who said all scientific study has to be tough?), and notice the temperature of the sand and the water.  In the middle of the afternoon, the sand will feel hot, and the water cool.  At midnight, the sand will feel cool, and the water temperature will be about the same. The sand changes its temperature through the course of the day, but the water temperature doesn't change much. So a large body of water has a moderating influence on climate.



Water is one of the few substances that expands when it freezes.  Most substances become denser and contract when they are cooled, and expand when they are heated. Water is less dense when it is frozen, so its solid form is lighter than its liquid form; in other words, ice floats. This is great if you are a fish: you can survive in the liquid water under a cover of ice on the surface.  Otherwise, ice would sink to the bottom of lakes and oceans, and it would be very hard to melt it.

Water is harder to heat up and harder to cool down than any other molecule.

This means that things around it like land - which heats up and cools quickly - causes a temp difference in the air above these respective substances which in turn causes

wind.

cold air has high pressure

warm/hot air has low pressure

air moves from high pressure to low pressure

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side note:

Take an ice cube and throw it into a glass of water.  It floats.

Water is the only molecule - substance know to humans that in its solid state - is less dense or weighs less than in its solid state.

If this were not the case - life would be impossible as the ice in the oceans and lakes would have settled to the bottom killing all living things.

Is water a miracle or what?