Question

Which of these statements best explains why land breeze blows during the night in coastal locations?

Sea gets cooled faster than land at night.

Sea gets heated up faster than land at night.

Land gets cooled faster than sea at night.

Land gets heated up faster than sea at night.

Answer 1

C) Land gets cooled faster than sea at night; At night the air over the ocean is warmer than the air over the land. The land loses heat quickly after the sun goes down and the air above it cools too. This can be compared to a blacktop road. During the day, the blacktop road heats up and becomes very hot to walk on. At night, however, the blacktop has given up the added heat and is cool to the touch. The ocean, however, is able to hold onto this heat after the sun sets and not lose it as easily. This causes the low surface pressure to shift to over the ocean during the night and the high surface pressure to move over the land. This causes a small temperature gradient between the ocean surface and the nearby land at night and the wind will blow from the land to the ocean creating the land breeze.a