Where does convection occur?
Wherever there is unequal heating of the Earth’s surface. The classic example is at the beach where the during the day, the land may absorb more radiant energy than the ocean and the heat up more quickly. The warmer air rises over the land, allowing air from over the ocean to move toward the land where it is in turn heated and rises. This causes an “on-shore” breeze. The heated air that rises moves back out over the water, cools and descends to fill the partial vacuum caused by the “on-shore” breeze. At night, the ocean is warmer and the process reverses, causing an “off-shore” breeze. A second, and more dramatic, example of convection is in a thunderstorm. Thunderstorms can be found all over the Earth’s surface at any given time. Thunderstorms even occur along coastal areas of Antarctica.
