Meteorology Commons^™

A Synoptic Air Mass Climatology Of The Eastern United States, Robert I. Wittick

Masters Theses

Chapter I

Introduction

Orientation and Objective

The concept of the air mass was developed by a group of Norwegian meteorologists during World War I. An air mass, they said, was a body of air which was horizontally homogeneous with respect to temperature and humidity. These bodies of air were classified according to their place of origin since the basic character of an air mass is similar to that of its source region.

Since 1932 when the first air mass climatology was written by Dinies¹, the meteorological and geographical journals have published many studies of air mass movements and …