DCE1 Lab Session 4

Lab practical session 4

“Meteorology measurements”

TEAM: Date: 16 - 11 - 2022

Team members (Surname, Name):
1 3
2 4

You need to bring a bottle of water of 1.5l of capacity per team, made of clear plastic, and cut above its half part
(3/4 of is height).

Activities to perform before the lab practical session

Very important. These activities must be performed by the team BEFORE entering the session in this document. If they are not
done your team won't be granted access to the lab.
1) List the most frequent meteorological variables that you know and specify with which instrument or device they are
measured.

2) What is a hygrometer? Describe how it works (you can look it up in the internet)

3) In a rainy day, we collect 182 cm3 in a cylindrical recipient. If the diameter of the base of the recipient is 8cm, how many
l/m2 have fallen?

The radius is obtained by dividing the diameter by 2, so the radius would be 4 centimetres.
Knowing that the volume is 182 cubic centimetres, we make the formula: Volume=(3,14) x r² x h.
By subtracting, we get that the h( height) is equal to 3.62 centimetres, we convert it to metres, dividing by 100,
leaving us with 0.0362 metres.

So 0.182 litres/ 0.0362 metres = 5 litres per square metre.

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4) We are at the sea level on a cloudy day (día de borrasca). Will the atmospheric pressure be higher, equal or lower than
the normal pressure (760mmHg or 1013mb)? Explain your answer

General characteristics of the experimental activity that follows

Type of practical work
(See Figure 1.4 in Topic 1, p. 38)
● Place of performance (Ámbito de realización): Lab
● Character: Semi closed. Partially Supervised work.
● Didactic objectives to reach: Skills, investigation/research.
Verification.

● Team work following directions and intervention steps given.

Working methodology ● Access to meteorological agencies using the internet
Purpose ● To handle some common devices used to determine meteorological
variables

Justification of this practical session

The aim of this practical session is for you to become familiar with the use of some devices that are used to measure
meteorological variables: temperature, pressure, humidity, etc. This instruments are quite common, you may even
have them at home. Apart from reinforcing your knowledge about the contents about Earth's atmosphere, the
practical activities that you will carry out during this lab session have a didactic value, as they may help you design a
"meteorological station" (estación meteorológica) in the classroom or at your future school. You will also be able to
design different activities oriented to Primary Education that will allow you to work on different competences:
mathematical ones (data representation and graphs), social and cultural (interest for learning the forecast before
travelling or planning a holiday), linguistic (el “refranero meteorológico”) and technological (visiting the websites of
the different agencies and information meteorological sources) among others.
Objectives of the lab session

✔ To check the physical basis of the devices used to measure the most frequent atmospheric variables

✔ To measure said variables

✔ To associate pressure with atmospheric stability/instability

✔ To check how you can build measuring devices with domestic materials

✔ To provide the students with strategies to use a small meteorological station

Materials

✔ Homemade pluviometer (pluviómetro casero): 1.5 l water bottle, measuring cylinder and ruler.

✔ Barometer

✔ Maximum and minimum thermometer

✔ Hygrometer (psicrómetro, un tipo de higrómetro)

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Activities to perform during the lab practical session

Development of the lab session
1. Measuring the fallen rain
A pluviometer is, in essence, a recipient that we situate outdoors and collects the rain water. You need to bring a
clear plastic bottle of water of 1.5l of capacity, cut above its half part. In the lab we will put the upper cut part upside
down into the lower cut part, as it is shown in the image. We can simulate the fallen rain by pouring water into the
bottle.
1) Describe how can you use the bottle to measure the collected water, how to
determine the quantity collected in an easy way, what units to use, etc.
2) Pour some water into the bottle, imagining that it is the rain fallen during the
previous night
3) Describe below the procedure followed to measure the collected rain (include
your calculations here) and express it in litres per square metre (l/m2).

Fallen rain (pluviometry): l/m2

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EXTENSION: Pluviometric data are often given as "mm of rain" instead of l/m . Does it make sense to give capacity
values as height values? It is does, how do you explain it? How many l/m2 correspond to 1 mm of fallen rain above
the ground?

2. Measuring atmospheric pressure

A metallic barometer will be used (aneroid barometer), the most used both at home and in labs.
Atmospheric pressure will vary with the elevation of the place we are at, as we will always have a thinner layer of air
if we use as our reference the atmospheric pressure at sea level. At sea level, the standard pressure is 760mmHg
(equivalent to 1013mb). In Granada, for example, we are at 700m above sea level, so we will never reach such
pressure, we will always have lower pressure, even during higher pressure events.

Atmospheric pressure may change from one day to the next as a consequence of the movements of the air masses
circulating above an area (cyclones, low pressure and anticyclones, high pressure). The atmospheric pressure (Patm) is
the same inside and outside the lab, so we can use the barometer in the lab to measure the pressure in our area.
Be aware that the barometer we are using has two different measuring scales, and a certain measurement precision.

1) Provide the readings of the values for the current atmospheric pressure in the lab using the barometer.

± mmHg
Current atmospheric
pressure
(Date: / / )
± mb

The barometer has a mobile dial (aguja móvil) that may be manually moved towards the current reading in
order to see the changes from one day to the next. Using this, we can detect if the pressure has increased
or decreased in relation to previous days. If pressure has gone up (anticyclone), we have stability, if the
pressure has gone down (cyclone, borrasca), we have instability.
2) Compare the measured atmospheric pressure with the one provided in an isobar map. You can access a
map like this in the weather forecast webpage (AEMET: inicio, el tiempo, observación, hoy y últimos días).
Select the variable you want to see. Here you can also see values for other variables.
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http://www.aemet.es/es/eltiempo/observacion/ultimosdatos?k=and&w=0&datos=img&x=h24&f=presion
Presión atmosférica según el mapa de isobaras
(Téngase en cuenta también el error de esta última
determinación sin más que observar en cuántos mb se ± mb
diferencian dos isobaras consecutivas).

3. Measuring maximum and minimum temperature

We need a special thermometer formed by two U-shaped tubes . The left tube measures the minimum temperature,
and the right one the maximum temperature. We can measure the maximum and minimum values for different time
spans: morning to afternoon, a day, a week, etc.

In order to take the readings, we need to look at the lowest part of each tube, the
blue segment.
Within the tubes there are two small pieces of steel that the mercury moves when
the temperature rises or decreases during the time span we are measuring.
However, once they reach the maximum or minimum value within that range,
they don't "fall" again, they remain there, giving us the value of the maximum and
minimum temperature.
1) Take the measurement of the temperature in the lab (it should be the same in
both tubes)
Current temperature: ________ oC

2) Now, let's imagine we are measuring the temperature range of one day in
Granada. Using a magnet, we will artificially make the mercury move as if we are
increasing the temperature by 7º at midday and decreasing the temperature by
12º at night. Take now the measurement of the maximum and minimum
temperature for a complete day in Granada.
tmax : tmín :

4. Measuring relative humidity (Rh)

We can use a hygrometer to measure relative humidity. However, if we don't have one, we can also make up a device
called psicrometer (psicrómetro), an instrument that uses two thermometers and a piece of wet felt (fieltro) to
measure relative humidity
In normal room conditions, both thermometers give a different reading.
one of them, the 'dry thermometer', gives the room temperature. The
'wet' one has the wet piece of felt around its bulb, so the evaporation of
water around it cools down the thermometer, so its temperature will be
lower than that of the 'dry' thermometer.
The drier the environment, the lesser the relative humidity, the higher
the evaporation and therefore, the lower the temperature, so higher
temperature difference between both thermometers.
A table on the flat surface between both thermometers will give us the
value of Rh, if we know the temperatures given by both thermometers.

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1) Write down:
(a) Dry thermometer temperature: _________
(b) Wet thermometer temperature:
c) the difference between both measurements: __________
(d) The Rh in the lab: ______________
5. Final proposal
As you see, it is quite easy to create your own meteorological station in the schoolyard. If you and your students take
daily measurements during the academic year, you will end up with lots of data to prepare graphs, to interpret them
and to compare them with real data from your area from the AEMET or other sources. We encourage you to do it!!