Exam 2 Spring 20007

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  1. What are the three criteria used to describe the structure of the Earth's atmosphere?
  2. What are the different thermal layers in the atmosphere?
    1. How does the temperature change as you go up in each of these layers?
    2. Why does the temperature decrease as you go up in the troposphere?
      1. What is the lapse rate?
    3. Why is the temperature so high in the upper thermosphere?
    4. Why is the temperature high at the top of the stratosphere?
  3. What percentage of the mass of the atmosphere is in the troposphere?
  4. What are the different compositional layers in the atmosphre?
    1. Why does the homosphere have a uniform composition?
    2. What is it's composition? and where did these gasses come from?
    3. Why do you find different gasses in the upper heterosphere relative to the lower heterosphere?
      1. What gasses do you find in the upper and lower heterosphere?
  5. What are the different functional layers in the atmosphere?
    1. Why is the ionosphere called the ionosphere?
    2. What is the function of the ozonosphere?
      1. Why is there a hole in the ozone layer?
      2. Is there actually a hole in the ozone layer?
      3. Homogeneous depletion versus heterogenous depletion.
      4. Where is the location with the most ozone depletion? and why?
      5. What is the Treaty to prevent ozone depletion called and when was the agreement made?
        1. How successful has this agreement been?
  6. What is the difference between natural and anthropogenic pollution?
    1. Describe sources of natural pollution and the types of pollution they produce.
    2. What are the major source of anthropogenic pollution? (Have you stopped driving yet?)
    3. What are the major atmospheric pollutants?
      1. What is photochemical smog?
      2. What is acid rain? and how is it produced?
      3. What is a temperature inversion?
    4. What is the Clean Air Act.
      1. What is the role of the EPA? (What is the EPA?)
      2. How does the EPA determine pollution standards?
      3. What is a cap and trade program?
        1. What are the problems with these programs?

Contents

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Chapter 4

  1. Solar radiation that reaches the Earth's atsmosphers can be
    1. Scattered: Which wavelengths are scattered?
      1. Why is the sky blue and sunsets red?
    2. Transmitted-absorbed: Which wavelengths are transmitted and which are absorbed (and why)?
      1. How does this result in the Greenhouse Effect
    3. Refracted: Why does refraction occur and which wavelengths are refracted?
      1. How does refraction affect the apparence of sunrise and sunset.
    4. Reflected
  2. What is the net effect of clouds on the earth's climate (does it warm or cool and why)?.
  3. Solar radiation that hits a surface is called Insolation
    1. What is the spatial distribution of insolation at the Earth's surface? Explain this distribution
    2. What is the average albedo of the earth.
      1. What land surface covers (and colors) have more (or less) albedo?
  4. How is heat released from the surface of the earth?
    1. Latent - advection
    2. Sensible � conduction then advection
    3. Radiated - radiated
  5. What is the Greenhouse effect
    1. How do different cloud types affect the greenhouse effect
  6. How does the daily pattern of insolation relate to the the tempertature in the atmosphere?
    1. At what time is the temperature the coolest (out of 24 hours)
    2. At what time is the temperature the warmest (out of 24 hours)
  7. Latent versus Sensible heat
    1. How much heat does it take to melt 1gram of ice? to evaporate 1gram of water?
    2. How much heat does it take to raise the temperature of water by 1 degree Celcius?
  8. How and why do cities affect the atmosphere?
    1. What is the urban heat island and why does it form?
    2. How do cities affect clouds and rainfall?
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Chapter 5. Global Temperatures

  1. What is temperature? (and how is temperature related to the wavelength of radiation?)
  2. How is temperature measured?
    1. What is special about the Kelvin scale (what is absolute zero)?
    2. What is the Celsius scale? (what is the freezing and melting points of water in this scale?
    3. How is the Celsius scale related to the Kelvin scale.
    4. How does a mercury or alcohol thermometer work?
      1. Why can't you use water in a thermometer?
      2. How does a thermostat work?
      3. How does a digital thermometer work?
  3. How does the human body respond to hot and cold temperature
    1. What is the Heat Index and what causes it?
    2. What is wind chill and what causes it?
  4. What affects the global temperature distribution? (Pay attention to both the average temperature and the intra-annual temperature range)
    1. Latitude (how and why?)
    2. Elevation (how and why?) (what is the lapse rate)
    3. Cloud cover (how and why?) (think global atmospheric circulation)
    4. Continentiality (how and why?)
    5. What is the thermal equator (why does it move)?
      1. Why does it move more over land masses than over the oceans?
  5. Land water heating differences. Continental versus maritime climates
    1. Why does the land heat up faster and cool down faster than the oceans
      • (Hint: three reasons) Heat capacity, latent heat loss, transparency-mixing
    2. The transition between the warm surface water and deeper cooler water is called the ____________
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Chapter 8: Weather

  • Remember Global atmospheric circulation patterns
    • particularly the jet stream, the polar low, rosby waves
  • Which air masses affect the US and what are the properties of these air masses?
    • hint: think polar continental and tropical maritime
  • How do the properties of the air masses change as they move over the US?
    • hint: think lake effect and continentality
  • How do these air masses relate to the location of the polar low and subtropical high?
  • How does seasonality affect the location of the subtropical low and the polar high?
    • and thus the weather in Memphis.
  • What are the symbols for the a cold front, warm front and a occluded front.
    • What type of weather is associated with a cold front, warm front and occluded front.
    • If I gave you a map showing fronts could you determine the weather at different locations on the map?
  • What is a mid-latitude cyclone
    • where do they form
    • how do they behave – what are their stages
    • how do their tracks change with the seasons
  • What conditions are necessary for:
    • Thunderstorms
    • Tornadoes:
    • when and where do they occur (and why do they occur when and where they occur)
  • What conditions are necessary for the formation of tropical cyclones?
    • What scale is used to describe the strength of a hurricane
    • What is the highest category of hurricane?
    • Why do hurricanes die once the go over the land?
    • Why do hurricanes move from east to west?
    • Why do they seem to aim for Florida?
    • What is the storm surge associated with hurricanes?
    • Which side of the hurricane has stronger winds (east or west)?
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Global Warming

  • Explain the theory of global warming
    • Greenhouse gasses - Carbon dioxide, methane - absorb long wave radiation, not short wave.
    • Sunlight (short wave) comes in but long wave is radiated from Earth.
    • Greenhouse gasses prevent escape of long-wave radiation.
  • What evidence is there that global warming is taking place
    • Ice cores show pattern of warming and cooling over 600,000 years
    • Bird and butterfly migration patterns - they head north about 1 week earlier and south about 1 week later (over last 100 years)
    • Instrumental records for the last 100 years


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Student questions

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