#6 Postby Wthrman13 » Mon Aug 25, 2008 4:45 pm
To add on to what has already been said, there is a significant difference between how meteorologists tend to use the word "convection" and how other fluid dynamicists use it, but usually at the end of the day we are all talking about the same thing. In general fluid dynamics, convection is used to describe macroscale motion of fluid transporting some fluid property (such as temperature) in any direction. In meteorology, we usually split this up into advection and convection, with advection describing horizontal motions, and convection describing vertical motions. This is only because horizontal motion of fluid in the atmosphere is often different in what it "accomplishes" than vertical motion, so it's useful to have two different words to describe them.
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