Lift

Thermal Slope

Clouds can develop in response to lifting.

Topographic rises like mountain ranges wring moisture from the air to create orographic clouds.

Orographic comes from a concatenation of the Greek word for hill (όρος) and the Greek verb to write (γραφία).

Orographic lift occurs when moist air is forced upward as it moves over the thermal slope of a rising mountain.

When air rises, it adiabatically cools which raises its relative humidity to cause clouds. Adiabatic cooling occurs when air temperature decreases via a decrease in air pressure caused by volume expansion.

"I know that I am mortal by nature, and ephemeral; but when I trace at my pleasure the windings to and fro of the heavenly bodies I no longer touch the earth with my feet: I stand in the presence of Zeus himself and take my fill of ambrosia."
― Ptolemy, Ptolemy's Almagest


REFERENCES

• Adiabatic Process, Wikipedia.
• Orographic lift, Wikipedia.
• Orographic clouds, University of Illinois, 2010.

Tsunamis & Seafloor Topography

Seafloor features affect how tsunami waves build in intensity as they approach a coastline. Scientists have hypothesized that seafloor mountains and chasms also affects the strength and height of the moving ocean wave fronts.

NASA JPL scientists and researchers from the Ohio State University used satellite altimeter data that had recorded sea levels changes to within an accuracy of a few centimeters following the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake to confirm this hypothesis.

Jason-2 Satellite

Data from Jason-1, Jason-2, and Envisat satellites that passed over the wave fronts caused by the the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake confirmed that islands, ocean floor chasms, and submerged mountains play a role in deflecting or amplifying tsunami waves even at distances of thousands of miles from the source of the disturbance.

Sea level changes from the satellite data following the Tōhoku tsunami were verified with results from GPS sensors and buoy data recorded by NOAA's DART program.

(1)	Wave peaks are shown in reddish-brown.
(2)	Seafloor depressions are depicted in bluish-green.
(3)	Mid-ocean ridges, peaks, and islands are depicted as grayscale outlines.

The simulation above, created from the 2011 satellite data, shows refraction, bending, and merging of waves as they propagate thousands of miles.

Source: The Seafloor Focuses and Merges Tsunami Waves published March 12, 2012 by NASA Earth Observatory.