In class we did an activity on how fast dirt, snow, and water heated and cooled. First, we heated all of them by a light for 10 mintes and wrote the temperature of each every minute. Next, we turned the light off and analyzed the tempurater every minute for another 10 minutes. In the end we found out that the dirt heats and cools faster than the snow and water. In the activity I could have effected how it heated because the light wasn't equally on the dirt, snow, and water. A tropical cyclone is a storm that is fueled by the heat released when moist air rises and the water vapor in it condenses. That relates to our activity because when heated a tropical cyclone produces. Even though when the dirt, water, and snow is heated nothing forms, but tropical cyclones produce from water vapor being heated. Something I didn't know about tropical cyclones is they can produce extreamly strong winds, tornadoes, torrential rain, high waves, and storm surges, which can cause a lot more damage than just the cyclone alone. The activity was interesting because i didn't expect the dirt to be the one to heat and cool the fastest. I figured the snow would melt easily and the water would get warm.
I found my information on cyclones here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane
