Weather and Climate notes |
Weather and Climate notes
1. What are the two main gases that make up air and what are their percentages?
. Nitrogen, 78%
. Oxygen: 21
2. What is the only trace gas not produced by living organisms?
Ozone
3. What two gases made up the early atmosphere?
Hydrogen and helium
4. What does the ozone layer do?
The ozone layer shielded Earth from harmful ultraviolet rays.
5. In which layer of the atmosphere does weather occur:
Troposphere.
6. What is a temperature inversion?
Temperature normally decreases with height. Sometimes, temperature increases with height. This is called temperature inversion.
7. In which layer of the atmosphere is the ozone layer found?
Stratosphere.
8. What is the Greenhouse Effect?
Carbon dioxide and water vapor absorb infrared radiation and re-emit some of them back to Earth’s surface. The re-emission is called greenhouse effect.
9. Why is the atmosphere heated unevenly?
Earth’s surface has different characteristics (like dry land, ocean, snow, ice) in absorbing and reflecting solar radiation, so it heats atmosphere unevenly.
10. Air generally RISES over warm surfaces and SINKS over cold surfaces.
11. What must happen for clouds to form?
Clouds formation generally requires moist air, rising and cooling, and condensation nuclei.
12. What are two basic cloud types?
Two basic cloud types are the puffy cumulus type and the flat, elongated, stratus type.
13. What must happen in order for precipitation to occur?
Cloud formation is the first step in the precipitation process.
14. What is atmospheric pressure?
Atmospheric pressure is the pressure caused by gas molecules moving and colliding with each other and any surfaces they touch.
15. What happens to atmospheric pressure as you go up in altitude? Why?
As we go up in altitude, the atmospheric pressure decreases because the number of air molecules decreases as altitude increases.
16. What are westerlies?
Westerlies are the wind that blow from the west in the middle latitudes.
17. What are trade winds?
The trade winds are the winds blowing from the east in the tropics.
18. What are the two factors that produce global patterns?
. Unequal heating between the equator and the poles.
. the rotation of Earth.
19. What creates a general north-south wind circulation?
20. What produces an east-west deflection of winds?
Warm air rising near the equator and sinking over the poles.
21. What are jet streams?
Jet streams are fast and powerful winds that control many weather processes.
22. How does the jet stream impact the US?
The polar front jet stream is a wind maximum in the westerlies located about 12 km above the surface. Its speeds can exceed 500 km/h. Major storm tracks follow it as it moves north and south with the season.
23. Which three large-scale weather systems have the most effect on the US?
The subpolar lows, westerlies, and the subtropical highs.
24. At Earth’s surface in the northern hemisphere, air moves COUNTER-CLOCKWISE toward low pressure and CLOCKWISE from high pressure.
25. What is the Coriolis Effect?
The Coriolis Effect is a force that deflects the air to the right in the northern hemisphere, and to the left in the southern hemisphere.
26. Describe continental air?
Continental air originates over land. It is relatively dry and can be extremely cold or extremely warm.
27. Describe maritime air.
Maritime air originates over the oceans. It is moist.
28. What would continental polar air be like?
29. What are weather fronts?
Weather fronts are the zones where air masses interact.
30. Draw the symbols used to represent a cold front and a warm front. Label each one.
31. Why is the US prone to severe weather?
Because of the extreme temperatures of warm and cold air masses and the availability of moisture from tropical oceans.
32. What is climate?
Climate is the net result of interactions involving all aspects of the biogeophysical system called Earth.
33. What five factors cause climate?
. Solar radiation
. Latitude
. Transportation of heat by wind and ocean current
. Precipitation
. Location
34. How do mountains influence climate?
The mountains act as barriers in the wind, blocking weather systems and altering patterns of precipitation.
35. What is water’s influence on climate?
. Lake effect snow
. Sea breeze
36. What human activities have influenced weather?
Burning of fossil fuels, manufacturing processes, deforestation, draining of wetlands, and intensive agriculture.
37. What is global warming?
Global warming is an increase in the average global temperature of Earth.
38. Where is the hole in the ozone layer? Why is it bad?
A hole in the ozone layer is found over Antarctica. Ozone protects life on Earth from ultraviolet radiation which breaks down DNA. Decrease in ozone could potentially affect the quality of life.
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