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Geosystems - Air
Flashcards for my Geosystems course.
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| What are the greenhouse gases? | CO2 = carbon dioxide (64%) CH4 = methane (19%) N2O = Nitrous oxide CFC = chloroflourocarbons water vapor |
| The increase of rate and the concentration levels of CO2 are higher than anytime in the past how many years? | Rate of increase = 20,000 Concentration = 420,000 |
| What are some of the foreseen consequences of global warming? | Changes in crop patterns, species redistribution, spread of tropical diseases, ice melt, rise in sea levels, receding shoreline, |
| What are "no regret" mitigation actions? | The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) suggests that governments take actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at a loss in net benefits for the overall, long-term benefits. |
| What is climatology? | Climatology is the study of climate. Climatologists study weather patterns to gain climatic statistics and map climatic regions. |
| What's the difference between climate and weather? | Climate is the overall, longterm collection of weather patterns. |
| What are some of the climate inputs (I have five in this answer)? | Air mass, precipitation, temperature, insolation, and air pressure. |
| What are the five basic climate categories and their regional types? | 1) Tropical (rain forest, monsoon, savanna) 2) Mesothermal (humid subtropical, marine west coast, Mediterranean) 3) Microthermal (humid continental, subarctic regions) 4) Polar (tundra, ice caps & ice sheets) 5) Highland |
| Why are deserts different than the other basic climate categories? | They're based on moisture efficiency as well as temperature. There are arid deserts and semiarid steppes. |
| What is the Kyoto Protocol? | In 1997, many nations got together in Kyoto, Japan, and agreed that they would get their greenhouse gas emissions down to 1990 levels by 2012. |
| What are the four basic principles of air? | 1) Air moves from high P to low P (stronger dP (air pressure), stronger wind) 2) Warmer air rises, cooler air sinks 3) Expanding a pocket of air cools it, conpressing a pocket of air warms it 4) Warmer air can hold more moisture in vapor form |
| How does air relate to culture? | Air circulation relates to climate relates to the availability of water relates to type of soil relates to relationship with land relates to climate. |
| What is insolation? | Incoming solar radiation. |
| What are the influencing factors of seasonal change (4)? | Revolution (turning round the sun), rotation (spinning on axis), Tilt of Earths' axis (66.5 degrees from plane of ecliptic), Axial Parallelism (retains alignment toward Polaris and plane of ecliptic) |
| What is seasonality? | Seasonality refers to the seasonal variation of the Sun's position above the horizon and the changing daylengths during the year. |
| In which direction does the Earth turn? | Viewed from the N Pole, Earth rotates counterclockwise, or eastward. |
| What are the types of fog? | Advection fog, and radiation fog |
| What is advection fog? | Occurs when air moves from one place to another. Warm air moves over cool bodies of water, cools, makes dew. Evaporation fog when cold air moves over warm water, dewing the evaporation. Upslope fog, when warm air is moved up a hill and cools. Valley fog. |
| What is radiation fog? | Occurs when cool water cools air above it and makes fog. |
| What are the types of clouds? | Stratus, cumulus, stratocumulus, altocumulus, altostratus, nimbo stratus, nimbocumulus, cirrus, cirrostratus, cirrocumulus |
| What is convectional lifting? | Occurs from local heating. Cold maritime air passes to warmer land or urban spaces, causes rising. |
| What is orographic lifting? | When air moves up or is collected by a physical obstruction like a mountain. |
| What is convergent lifting? | When two air coming from different directions meets, compresses, warms, and rises. |
| What is a rain shadow? | The dry area leeward of a mountain. |
| Describe a cold front. | 1-2 days before, high cirrus clouds. A cold mass of air moves in, forces warmer air up very steep front end, cools, and creates huge, cumulonimbus clouds. Wind shift, pressure & temp drop, hard rain, thunder & lightning sometimes. |
| Describe a warm front. | A warm mass of air moves in, can't displace cooler air so just pushes it into a gentle wedge shape and slides over it. This causes a temp inversion. Cirrus, cirrostratus, altostratus, stratus, nimbostratus. Drizzy rain. |
| What is relative humidity? | Relative humidity compares the actual content of moisture in the air and the potential moisture capacity of the air at its current temperature. |
| What happens in the aftermath of a cold front? | Cooler temps, N wind in N hemi, S in S hemi, broken cloud cover. |
| What atmospheric disturbances are associated with fronts? | Cold fronts make squalls when the warmer wind is lifted extremely fast. They create very heavy prec. & unsteady, high winds. Mid-latitude cycles are created by converging fronts when cold air migrates and has air rising into it, which creates swirling. |
| How can a thunderstorm be formed? | Can form at forefront of cold front, or local heating can heat air, forcing it up to the dew point, and the frictional force of falling raindrops pulls air down too. |
| What are thunder and lighting? | Lightning is a sudden and violent discharge of energy that briefly superheats the air around it. Sudden expansion sends shockwaves through the air - sonic bangs, or thunder. |
| How does hail form? | When a raindrop is circulated above and below the freezing point repeatedly, it builds layers of ice until its weight can't be supported by the circulation in the cloud. |
| What is albedo? | The amount of insolation reflected back into the atmosphere. |
| What are some natural causes of pollution? | Wind moves it from place to place, wildfires, regional landscape traps it, temperature inversions. |
| What are anthropogenic causes of pollution? | Photochemical smog happens when gas-powered auto emissions interact with sunlight, create acid rain, ozone, and PAN. Industrial smog is created through coal burning, creates sulfur oxides and aerosols. |
| What do the two types of anthropogenic caused pollution have in common? | Caused by burning of fossil fuels, cause acid rain, damage our health, damages the environment, and produce visible layers of pollution.ta? |
| What are the two positive feedback loops of global warming? | Melting tundra, exposed wetland, CO2 emission, warming, melting tundra. Melting icecaps, lower albedo, more radiation absorbed at surface, warmer, melting icecaps. |
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