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Geolens

Glossary

417 words used in the labs.

Find a term from the labs, understand the process behind it, and see how it appears in the landscape. Each entry connects an explanation with a real observation and a model you can explore.

Term

Land breeze

A local wind from land towards the sea, commonly at night when land has cooled faster. Larger-scale winds can weaken or prevent it.

What to look for

GOES-19, 30 October 2025 at 13:20 UTC. A land breeze keeps clouds away from part of Lake Michigan’s western shore. The product combines visible and infrared observations across the night-to-day transition; station measurements confirm the offshore flow.

Related labs

Thermal circulation →
GOES-19 satellite view of a cloud-free band beside western Lake Michigan as a land breeze pushes offshore.
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Explore further with USGS water glossary · USGS volcano glossary · NPS glacial geology · NASA Earth facts. Photograph acknowledgements are collected on the Image credits page.