Weather Myths, Busted!

Weather Myths, Busted! — page 1 — Busted Four Elements Are Responsible for Weather SEASONS Early weather watchers did not know what caused weather They could not predict it But that did not stop them from writing about it The Greek scientist Aristotle wrote four books on weather He lived more than 2 300 years ago Aristotle was very intelligent But much of his science was wrong Aristotle did not test his ideas He only thought about Aristotle also thought stars and planets orbited Earth In 1543 Nicolaus Copernicus proved Aristotle was wrong Copernicus showed Earth orbited the Sun This discovery helped explain why seasons changed As Earth orbits the Sun it rotates on its axis But this axis is tilted The tilt changes the angle at which the sun s rays hit the earth This causes the change in seasons Aristotle's theory could not explain seasons them He did not measure or do experiments Aristotle thought only four elements made up all matter on Earth These were earth air fire and water He thought these elements worked together Aristotle came up with the four elements theory but never tested it to cause

Weather Myths, Busted! — page 2 — 110 030 A barometer records atmospheric Aristotle believed pressure the sun caused air pressure Now they could begin to understand weather They started to understand that many factors large masses of air to move He thought water vapor formed clouds These statements happen to be affected weather true But the four elements could not explain most weather Starting in the fifteenth century scientists began to make 2 000 instruments to measure weather Number of years people accepted Aristotle's ideas changes They made instruments to measure humidity temperature and THINK ABOUT IT Aristotle claimed four elements controlled weather earth air fire and water His ideas did not explain most weather Science has changed a lot since Aristotle's time Explain what changes have occurred to cause people to turn away from most of Aristotle's science In the fifteenth century scientists began to invent instruments to measure weather

Weather Myths, Busted! — page 3 — Busted Celsius Tops Fahrenheit in Temperature Measurement Early inventors made simple the body temperature measurement thermometers But these to 98 6° thermometers all had different Fahrenheit's temperature scale scales You could not compare their was accurate But it was a little temperatures confusing In 1742 Swedish Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit was astronomer Anders Celsius created a German instrument maker In a simpler scale He defined the freezing point of water as 0° 1724 he made a temperature scale everyone could use First he created the 0° mark for his scale To do so he used the temperature of a mixture of ice and sea salt On this scale the 80° Fahrenheit is approximately 27° Celsius freezing point of water became 30° Fahrenheit's body temperature measurement was 90° Later he added the boiling point of water 212° He also changed the melting point of water from 30° to 32 He adjusted 50 120 40 EE 30 100 20 SF 80

Weather Myths, Busted! — page 4 — A cricket's chirp gets slower as the temperature drops The boiling point of water was 100° People still These rounded measurements use the were easier to understand than scales developed Fahrenheit's odd numbered by Fahrenheit and Celsius Nearly every country in the world uses the ones This simple scale is the Celsius scale Celsius scale The United States uses the Fahrenheit scale 37 Temperature of the human body in degrees Celsius TEMPERATURE BY CRICKET Before Fahrenheit temperatures on different thermometers could not be compared Fahrenheit's temperature scale goes from 0° to 212 ice melts at 32° and water boils at 212° In the Celsius scale the low of 0° represents the freezing point of water and the high of 100° the boiling point of water Crickets temperatures are the same as the air temperature In hot weather crickets chirp rapidly In cold weather their chirps slow down Use a stopwatch to measure the number of chirps in 15 seconds Add 37 to get the approximate temperature in degrees Fahrenheit This temperature might not be exact but it will be

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