AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO AIR MASS CLASSIFICATION IN THE NORTH CENTRAL UNITED STATES |
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| Authors: | Mark D Schwartz |
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| Institution: | MARK D. SCHWARTZ is The Department of Geography, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA 94132. His research interests include synoptic climatology and modeling of plant-climate interactions. |
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| Abstract: | Both subjective and objective schemes for air mass classification offer advantages to climatological studies. An integrated approach is developed and applied to 850 mb level data in the north central United States. Each air mass type was initially delimited by a subjective analysis. Final limits were then determined with an objective technique that separates temperature curves into normal components based on interpretation from the subjective method. Continental air was most frequent in all seasons except summer. The methodology also allows estimation of classification error. |
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| Keywords: | air mass classification north central United States normal components |
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