Sea and land breezes are caused because

Question

anonymous · Answer

Convection currents

kainui · Answer

This is just like having a metal pot. If you touch a metal pot while you are both at room temperature, it will suck heat out of your skin and feel cold to the touch. If the metal pot is on the stove, it will easily burn your fingers. This is because they transfer heats at different rates.

Similarly, the land heats up much faster during the day, causing the air on land to heat up and rise. When it rises, it sucks in air from over the water causing a land breeze.

At night, the land gets colder again just like the metal pot, so it sucks warmth towards it while the water with higher heat capacity is still warm later into the night and has hot air that rises causing a sea breeze.

I always worry about this when I go sailing because right at sunset is when the wind dies as it transitions between a land breeze and sea breeze. I've been stuck out on the water several times when this happens unfortunately haha.