Geology 305 – Midterm 2 Review Material – Weather & Climate

(chapters 16-19, ch. 20, pg 623-629)

Terms:

air pressure barometer Delta Breeze isobar cyclone anticyclone jet stream monsoon polar easterlies westerlies trade winds equatorial low subtropical high subpolar low polar high

pressure gradient Southern Oscillation atmospheric instability calorie deposition dew point evaporation fog clouds relative humidity specific humidity orographic lifting saturation wet adiabatic rate dry adiabatic rate albedo

equinox solstice Tropic of Capricorn Tropic of Cancer heat temperature convection conduction radiation climate weather environmental lapse rate Greenhouse effect ozone troposphere stratosphere

ultraviolet radiation visible light tropopause Arctic Circle Antarctic Circle latent heat sensible heat Coriolis Force

1. What is the difference between climate and weather?
2. What is the composition of dry atmosphere?
3. How much water vapor can be in Earth’s atmosphere?
4. What role does CO² play in the Greenhouse effect?
5. What family of chemicals contributes to ozone depletion?
6. In which layer of Earth’s atmosphere is ozone concentrated?
7. What role does ozone play in our lives?
8. Where is stratospheric ozone depletion highest?
9. What are the two lowest layers of Earth’s atmosphere?
10. Describe each layer in terms of temperature trends.
11. What happens to air pressure as altitude increases?
12. What is an example of shorter wave radiant energy that comes from the sun? Longer wave radiant energy?
13. What is the relative amount of 1) ultraviolet, X-ray, and gamma radiation, 2) visible light, and 3) infrared wavelengths, that come to Earth from the Sun?
14. How does the angle at which the Sun’s rays change with latitude? How does this affect temperatures at those latitudes?
15. What causes the seasons?
16. What is the angle between the plane of the equator and the plane of Earth’s orbit?
17. At which latitudes would you find the Tropic of Cancer? Tropic of Capricorn? Arctic Circle? Antarctic Circle?
18. What is the circle of illumination?
19. At which latitudes do the sun’s rays strike the Earth perpendicularly at the solstices? The equinoxes?
20. What is the relative difference between the length of day and night for each of the seasons in each hemisphere?
21. Roughly how thick is the troposphere?
22. What is Earth’s albedo?
23. What are the two basic scales for measuring temperature? How do they differ?
24. Why do oceans (or rather large bodies of water) tend to have a moderating effect on coastal areas?
25. What types of seasonal temperature differences generally exist for areas farther from oceans?
26. Relatively speaking, what is the difference in the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of H20 compared to the amount of heat required to change H20 from one state of matter to another?
27. With respect to water vapor, what does saturation mean?
28. How does relative humidity change with temperature changes? How does relative humidity generally change throughout the day?
29. What are adiabatic temperature changes? What is the environmental lapse rate? Dry adiabatic rate? Wet adiabatic rate?
30. What conditions produce unstable atmosphere? What happens in unstable atmosphere? What produces stable atmospheric conditions?
31. What are at least two processes for lifting air in the atmosphere?
32. What are three types of fog? Where would you find each in California?
33. What are various conventions for measuring air pressure?
34. What causes the Coriolis Effect? How does it affect the way air circulates around high & low pressure centers?
35. What are trade winds? How do they blow?
36. What is the general circulation of air on a non-rotating earth?
37. What kind of wind patterns develop in a rotating Earth?
38. What causes wind? What is pressure gradient force?
39. How do we describe wind directions?
40. Where are the jet streams located? In which direction do they flow?
41. How do hurricanes form?
42. Where do most hurricanes form?
43. What are some other names for hurricanes used in other parts of the world?
44. What is the relative pressure at the center of a hurricane?
45. Under what conditions does a hurricane build or maintain its strength?
46. Under what conditions does a hurricane weaken?
47. What time of the year is hurricane season?
48. What are three categories of damage caused by hurricanes?
49. Explain the source regions of different air masses
50. What are 4 different types of weather fronts, and generally, what type of weather is associated with each?
51. How and where does a mid-latitude cyclone develop?
52. What is Doppler radar? What is it used for?
53. What is the El Niño/Southern Oscillation?
54. What is the Greenhouse effect? Which gases produce the strongest Greenhouse effect?